


nothing but strawberries

by closingdoors



Series: Fruits 'verse [1]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, F/F, Family Feels, Future Fic, Johnny is a Dingle, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 23:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18062366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closingdoors/pseuds/closingdoors
Summary: The truth is ever since she'd lost Vanessa she’s just felt heavier. Like all of the light that ever once existed within her is gone. She can no longer find the good parts.Maybe there never had been any good in her at all. Maybe that had all been Vanessa.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A few things, before you begin:  
> a) This was only ever supposed to be a oneshot, but it's branched into a behemoth of a fic/my baby. As of posting this, the first six chapters six at 28.5k words. I've been working on it for months, so there are a few things in the show that'll slip through the cracks (ie. Lisa's terminal diagnosis).  
> b) The timeline/POV jumps around a lot. I promise it's not as confusing as it first seems. One thing to note is that all 'present' scenes are eleven years ahead of current Emmerdale canon.  
> c) This has more ridiculous drama and tears in it than an actual episode of Emmerdale. I don't know what possessed me to write this.  
> d) Thank you all for your support on my fics so far. This is one of the angstiest things I've ever written, and I'm already sorry about it. ;)

 "Did she know I loved her? Not through words, not through actions. But did she know? With every fibre of her being, was she sure of it? And if she was, did it matter?"

**Nothing But Strawberries, Sue Zhao**

 

* * *

 

 

When he walks into the room, the first thing Charity thinks is that he's taller than she'd expected.

Handsome, too. Yet the broad-shoulders, the dark features, they're all undercut by the kind smile he wears. He pays the barista — a teenage girl who blushes beetroot red when she hands him his drink — and there's warmth in his eyes, a sort of openness about him that shouldn't surprise her, really. When he turns and heads towards her, she can see how he's still growing into his limbs. Like he's still not adjusted to his height yet.

"You're Charity," he says before she can even stand to greet him. There's no malice, no bluntness to his voice. "Aren't you?"

"That's me," she replies, steadier then she feels.

He takes a seat opposite her. She smothers a smile when she spots that his drink of choice is a tea as dark as hers.

"Thanks for coming to see me."

The formality to it almost hurts. Charity swallows hard when it feels like tears might spring to her eyes. _No,_ she thinks. _No, you're stronger than that._

So she gives him a lazy smile instead.

"No problem, Johnny."

Johnny laughs. The sound is bright. The barista, still watching him behind the counter, looks like she's ready to faint.

"No-one calls me Johnny anymore. Well, Mum does, even though I tell her not to. Bit childlike, isn't it?"

Charity remembers. _John Woodfield,_ his profile on Facebook had read. She remembers the notification. Popping up innocently on her screen just as she dropped Moses off to his swimming club. _John Woodfield has sent you a friend request,_ it'd said, like her heart hadn't been in her throat at the name. She'd sat there for the entirety of Moses's swimming instead of going home, drinking in how much older he looked in his profile picture. Trying to keep her hands from shaking as she stared at the attached message: _Hi Charity, hope you're doing well. I have a couple questions I'd like to ask you._

"Childlike," Charity echoes, voice smaller than she'd like. She forces a laugh. "You're fifteen."

He just shrugs. "I feel older."

He _looks_ it too. Charity doesn't really remember Kirin, Vanessa hadn't exactly been on her radar then, but she can still recall the rumours. About the handsome teenage boy the local vet had been seeing. They'd all gossiped about how outrageous it was of Vanessa to do so, but contradicted themselves by talking about how much older he looked, how attractive he was. She supposes that's where Johnny's inherited a face beyond his years.

The maturity in the way he holds himself is all Vanessa, though.

"I can tell. You're not like our Moses. He still seems to think he's four."

"Moses." Johnny smiles slightly. "I remember him."

"Yeah? You remember that we had to put a padlock on the sweets cupboard to stop you two using each other as springboards to jump up to it?"

Johnny laughs again. "I don't. Mum didn't tell me that."

"What did your Mum tell you then?"

 _Did she tell you how you said I was your Ma, too?_ She thinks. Her leg begins to jump beneath the table. _Did she tell you about the time she was sick so I took you to parent's evening and your teachers told me my son was a genius? Did she tell you about building forts in the front room, how you and Moses would get chocolate all over the sheets, how I'd still be picking out pieces of popcorn from my pyjamas days later?_

_Did she tell you we were happy?_

"That you guys were loud. A great laugh." He stops and curls his hands around his mug. "That it hurt to leave but sometimes things don't work out like you'd hoped they would."

"Yeah. That sounds about right, kid."

Charity busies herself by looking at anywhere but Johnny. She's long since drank all her coffee but stares into the mug, pretending to be intrigued by the grounds left behind.

"So, uh. The whole reason I wanted to see you is, well — it's about my dad."

"You what?"

Her head snaps up and finds Johnny can't meet her eyes.

"About a year ago, I got curious about him. Don't get me wrong, I love my mum to pieces, and she's more than enough for me. I just... wondered about him, about where I'd come from, you know? Mum never really wanted to talk about him."

"With good reason."

"I know that now." Johnny frowns and finally meets her eyes. "I have a half-sister. Camila. She's six."

"Oh."

"Her Mum moved them back to the UK about eight months ago. Told me everything Kirin had done. She'd found out and left him."

Charity feels relief rattle through her. A half-sister on his father's side. She doesn't know why the thought of Vanessa having another kid claws at her insides so much. She has no right to Vanessa anymore. If anyone asks about her now, Charity just pretends she doesn't even remember the name. Being callous has always been easier than letting the hurt in, after all.

"What's this got to do with me, then?"

"Well... I can't really talk to mum about it."

"Does she know?"

"No. I haven't told anyone. Not even my aunt."

"Johnny," she sighs. He shoots her a look. "John. You gotta talk to your mum about this stuff. She loves talking about feelings."

"Don't I know it."

Charity clinks her mug against his.

"She knows how to deal with this sorta stuff, too. You know she and your aunt didn't know they were related?"

"I can't — she'd _kill_ me for looking into Kirin. I don't think she'd want me to have anything to do with Camila." Johnny winces before he looks up at her. "She told me once that you watched your son Ryan get to know his siblings. That you hated it but supported him eventually."

"Eh? I always wanted Ryan to know the Dingle lot. It was just a bit hard to get the words out."

"Not your family. I'm talking about Luke and Molly Bails."

She feels small, suddenly.

Charity remembers Johnny young. When his hands were always sticky and all he ever wanted to do was cuddle her. He'd been too young to understand what was going on during the Bails trial. As she'd watched him and Moses grow, she hadn't thought she'd ever have to explain it to them. They'd both accepted Ryan like he belonged. Neither of them had ever asked about his biological father when she and Vanessa had been together. Moses had asked when he was thirteen, and she'd had to explain the whole sordid thing to him then.

But Johnny — she always thought that she'd look a hundred feet tall to him. Silly Charity, who made him laugh and tickled him when she was supposed to be getting him ready for bed and hurled insults at the monsters under his bed. She thought that memory, that version of herself, being his hero, would be something he would keep out of the mess she and Vanessa had left behind.

“Your mum told you about him.”

“Found some old paper clippings.” Johnny gives her a sheepish grin. “She says I’m too curious for my own good.”

“She shouldn’t told you anything.”

Her voice sounds warped and far away. Johnny’s brow furrows.

“I think you’re really brave.”

“It’s not her story to tell.”

“No. Guess not.”

 _Fight back,_ she thinks, but the sentiment is for someone else, too many years too late.

“I just wondered, if um,” Johnny pauses and reaches up to scratch at his cheek, “if you could talk to Mum about it, maybe.”

Charity’s laughter is harsh.

“You’re having me on.”

“I swear — ”

“Look, kid, I don’t know what game you’re playing at, but you’d better give it up. Now.”

“You’ve the experience, she’d listen to you  — “

“Listen to — Johnny, what planet are you living on?”

“I know things are probably awkward — “

“I haven’t spoken to your mum in six years. Six _years,_ kid,” she spits. Johnny shrinks a little under her gaze. “I don’t know what kind of fairytale you think this is, but it doesn’t have a happy ending, I tell you that.”

“I’m sorry. I just thought…”

“You thought wrong.”

Johnny glances down at the table, frowning at imaginary lint. He lets his finger run along one of the swirls in the wood before he speaks.

“She said you were like this.”

“Like what?”

“Cruel.” He still doesn’t meet her eyes. “Especially when you want to be.”

The thought shouldn’t knock the breath out of her.

He’s right. She _is_ cruel, whether she means to be or not. When she wants to be, there’s nowhere safe for anyone she loves to hide from her sharp edges. God knows her kids have bore the brunt of it time and time again, after Vanessa had left. When there had been such a big, aching gap and no-one around to fill it.

To think that this is what he knows of her. What Vanessa thought to tell him about her. She tries to picture Vanessa’s face as she says it, but her mind gets jumbled, too many images of the woman she loved flooding forth. She can’t decide whether she would be sombre when she said it, resigned to Charity’s ways like she had been in the end. Or whether her face would twist up with anger, whether she’d finally had enough of keeping it all bottled up, like the day she left.

Johnny’s still tracing the patterns of the wood when she drags herself out of her thoughts. His lips pout a little, just like Moses’ do when he’s not got his way. The scowl he wears is nothing like Vanessa’s. That, she thinks, might just be hers.

“Look, kid,” she takes a deep breath, “if you want help, I can help you. But I’m not talking to your mum. It’s — there’s too much history.”

“What do you mean by help, then?”

She shrugs. “If you ever wanna chat about it.” _About anything,_ she thinks. “Get some perspective about what your mum’ll probably think. You know where to find me.”

“Will you… come with me to meet them?”

She takes in a sharp breath. Even offering to talk is too much. Vanessa would kill her if she ever found out that she helped her son go behind her back.

But she thinks about soft Sunday mornings, when Vanessa would be out on call, and Charity would sit with Johnny on her lap as they ate breakfast, Moses playing with his dinosaurs on the floor. When Johnny would sit and play with the ends of her hair contently while Moses demanded a catalyst for all of his endless energy. When Johnny would ask her for a bedtime story, even though she’d already read him one, and he’d fall asleep with his little hand curled through the loops of her jeans.

“If you want. Yeah.”

Her voice is too rough. It speaks too much without saying the right words. But Johnny beams up at her, and she finds she doesn’t regret it.  
  


 

* * *

 

  
He’s six years old when he learns his Ma has superpowers.

On his first day of year two, his coat hook is next to Moses’s. They’ve always been at opposite ends. Their teacher, Mrs Chen, ushers the rest of the class through to the classroom but spots Johnny and Moses staring at the signs above their coats, frowning.

“Alright, boys?”

Johnny points at his sign. “Dingle,” he reads. “I’m Woodfield.”

“ _I’m_ Dingle,” Moses adds unnecessarily.

Mrs Chen crouches next to them, smiling. “Didn’t your mum tell you about your last name changing?”

“My Ma,” Johnny corrects.

“Sorry. I meant your Ma.” Mrs Chen is giving him the same weird look his Mum does when he and Moses are hiding worms from the park in their pockets. “Didn’t she tell you you’re a Dingle now?”

Moses lets out a loud _whoop!_ He trips over the shoelaces that have already managed to come untied and bends down, tongue stuck out in concentration.

“Ma made me a Dingle?”

He traces each letter of the last name. Ma made him a Dingle, just like he wanted. He’s been saying it’s his last name for ages, but none of the teachers would listen, not even Mrs Chen. They’d still put his coat hook far away from Moses’s and make them sit far apart because of the stupid alphabet.

Ma must be a superhero, he decides.

 

* * *

 

  
Vanessa’s quiet.

It’s a simple morning. Charity’s sitting at the mirror, curling her hair, unaware of the damage she’s yet to do by the evening.

She watches Vanessa getting dressed in the mirror. Usually, Vanessa’s full of talk. An unfortunate side to her is that she’s a morning person. Always bright and chirpy, nattering about nothing, even if Charity pulls the bedcovers over her head and tries to go back to sleep. This morning, there’s nothing, though Charity can practically _hear_ her frown.

Vanessa buttons her blouse and begins pulling her hair up in a ponytail. Charity’s so distracted she burns the pads of her fingers on her curling tongs. She hisses and drops them. Vanessa barely looks over.

“Babe?” Charity asks, leaning down to grab the tongs by the handle. “Everything alright?”

“What?”

Charity twists to face her. Vanessa’s expression is impeccably calm. _Does she know?_ Charity wonders. _Can she tell?_

“I said, are you alright?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

“That explains why you look so mardy.”

“No I don’t,” Vanessa huffs, throwing her sleep shirt at Charity. There’s the barest hint of a smile before she sobers. “I love you.”

“I love you too, babe. What’s all this about?”

“I can’t just tell you I love you?”

“Happy to hear it everyday,” Charity replies easily. She rises from her seat and pads over to Vanessa, looping her arms around her. “You’d better be careful, though. It could go to my head.”

Vanessa rests her hands on Charity’s biceps so loosely she might as well not be touching her.

“Can’t have that. Your ego’s already big enough.”

Charity pulls her closer. Vanessa’s feet drag along the floor almost imperceptibly. She slips one hand from the small of Vanessa’s back to the end of her ponytail, twisting the hair around one finger.

“You promise you’re alright?”

Vanessa nods. “Promise.”

It’s not the first time Vanessa’s lied to her. She thinks it might be the first time she’s noticed it.

  
 

* * *

 

  
She thinks of her life in terms of _before_ and _after_ Vanessa now. The way she used to think about Bails.

Charity pulls up to Wishing Well in a daze. She thinks she sees something out of the corner of her eye — Johnny and Moses chasing each other about, the way they used to do — but when she turns there’s nothing there. Just mud and empty fields. She sighs and leans forwards, resting her head against the steering wheel.

A sharp knock makes her jump. Charity looks around to find Moses standing at the driver’s window, eyebrows raised expectantly. She rolls it down.

“I should get you a bell.”

“You’re late,” he replies. He bounces on the balls of his feet. “Can you give me a lift to Noah’s? We’re gonna get pizza with Ryan.”

“And your brothers can’t come get you because?”

Moses’s face twists up with annoyance so similar to his brother’s.

“Are you gonna give me a lift or not?”

“Get in, then.”

He beams at her. She rolls her eyes.

When she drops Moses off, Noah doesn’t come to the door to wave at her, but Ryan does.

This is the _after_ Vanessa. Noah’s still as sulky as he had been as a teen, despite being in his mid-twenties. He answers her texts when she harasses him and turns up to family events when expected, but other than that, he doesn’t have a lot to do with her. It’s been six years, but she’s still working on building a bridge of apologies, trying to get him to forgive her. The worst part of her isn’t even surprised or saddened by Noah’s distance. She loves him, but loving her children has always felt a bit like pulling teeth. Vanessa had done it easily.

She knows Noah would’ve rather left with her, than be stuck with Charity.

She pushes that thought away and heads back to Wishing Well. It’s quiet when she gets inside, Zak and Lisa are away for the weekend visiting Belle, and she makes herself a brew in silence. It goes cold.

Charity heads up to the room that used to be Debbie’s, now hers. There’s two boxes stacked on top of each other, unpacked and shoved in a corner, even after all this time. The rest of her stuff litters the place, but they’re just _things,_ nothing that makes it feel like a home, not even the photographs in the frames.

After all, she’d destroyed all the of the ones that belonged to her life with Vanessa. There’s a strange gap between the photographs, clues that there was a time when there had been someone other than just her and her kids.

It should’ve made her feel lighter, unlearning Vanessa. Freeing herself of the drama, the burden, but the truth is ever since she lost Vanessa she’s just felt heavier. Like all of the light that ever once existed within her is gone. She can no longer find the good parts.

Maybe there never had been any good in her at all. Maybe that had all been Vanessa.

 

* * *

 

  
Johnny doesn’t think about his father until he’s nine years old.

Moses barrels through the door, holding his phone above his head and flopping onto Johnny’s bed, crumpling the homework he’d been working on.

“Hey!” Johnny protests, yanking the paper out from under him. “You’ve ruined it.”

Moses shrugs, shoving his phone in Johnny’s face. “Look what my dad bought me!”

His eyes take a second to adjust to the bright screen suddenly in front of him. He squints, pulling away a little, that familiar ache between his eyebrows forming that makes his mum insist he needs to remember to wear his glasses. In the photo, he can see the latest gaming console sitting in front of a television, a little red bow stuck to it.

“But… it’s not your birthday.”

“Dad says Seb’s not allowed to touch it til I’m next there. D’you reckon Mum’ll let me go there this weekend instead of next?” Moses asks, ignoring Johnny’s question.

“But it’s your weekend with us.”

“Yeah, but look what I could play instead!”

“I thought we were gonna go swimming.”

“We can go next weekend.” Moses scrolls to the next photo and cackles. “I’ve got games and everything, Johnny!”

“Can I come play them with you?”

Moses locks his phone screen, frowning. “No. Don’t be daft.”

“Why not?”

“It’s _my_ dad’s house.”

Johnny feels the rejection heat his face. He yanks another piece of the homework out from Moses, who laughs and rolls over, chasing it, like they’re playing a game. Johnny grunts, twisting his legs out from underneath him and planting his feet on Moses’s sides. Moses laughs louder until Johnny clenches his jaw and shoves hard with his feet, sending his brother tumbling over the side of the bed and onto the wooden floor.

Moses lands on his back, the laughter knocked out of him. Johnny instantly panics, jumping down from the bed and kneeling beside him.

“Moses? You alright?” Moses is still gasping for air and he shakes him hard. “Moz?”

Moses finally begins breathing again. He pushes Johnny off of him with a scowl. Johnny catches himself on his elbows.

“What was that for?”

“You were ruining my homework.”

Moses pouts like Noah. “No-one cares about stupid homework.”

“You should.”

Johnny pushes himself to a stand, offering Moses his hand. Moses eyes it warily for a second before he takes it, standing too. He turns and grabs the phone from his bed, heading for the door, and Johnny only finds his voice against once his brother’s already in the doorway.

“D’you think I have a dad?”

Moses pockets his phone. “Duh.”

But it doesn’t _feel_ like he does. Otherwise, where are his weekends away? His presents, when it’s not even his birthday? Or like Noah— visiting a grave for a man he doesn’t remember…

“Even though I have two mums?”

“I have two mums _and_ a dad. And a stepmum. I win!”

Johnny kicks the wooden frame of his bed. Moses dances, like he’s celebrating, and Johnny has to fight hard against the urge to push his brother again.

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

“My dad.”

Moses just shrugs. “Dunno. Why?”

There’s no answer on his tongue. The realisation has come to him so quickly. His life has been this — his Mum, his Ma, and his brother Moses. Noah flits between uni and home, Debbie visits with her own kids, and Ryan sneaks them horror movies. That's always been enough.

“You two better not be fighting up there!”

They both jump at the sound of Charity’s voice. Moses scrabbles down the stairs and Johnny follows, finding her standing at the bottom of the stairs with one eyebrow quirked.

“I heard a bunch of thumps. Thought the bloody roof was coming down. If you two can’t spend time together without hitting each other —”

“We’re doing homework.”

Charity laughs. “If you’re gonna lie, at least lie well, Moses. Thought I taught you better than that.”

Moses just smiles sheepishly at her before scampering back upstairs. Johnny continues standing on the steps, one hand loose on the railings, staring at his Ma. Her eyebrow climbs her forehead.

He jumps down the last two stairs and wraps his arms tightly around her. She tenses for a couple seconds before her hands land on his shoulders, patting roughly. She’s never been good at affection, his Ma. His Mum relishes in it, always trying to pull him close and onto her lap when they watch a movie during family night, like he’s still a baby. When his Ma gives affection though, it’s honest. He doesn’t know why that makes it mean more when one of her hands combs through his hair and rub at the back of his neck.

“Alright, Johnnybobs?”

He pulls away a little to look up at her. There’s nothing about either of his mums reflected in him. Obviously, he wouldn’t look anything like Charity, but not even Vanessa. His skin’s a little darker, his features dark and heavy too, while his mum’s eyes are bright and her demeanour light. Sometimes though, when he catches his Ma like this, a little guarded in her expression, he thinks he can fool himself into believing he looks like her. He wants to be like her more than he wants anything in the world. His Ma’s the bravest person he knows.

“I love you.”

Her eyebrows knit together, but the hand on his shoulder squeezes.

“Back at you, kid.”

 

* * *

 

  
Vanessa comes to see her at lunchtime, ponytail swinging in her air behind her, walking with purpose. Charity rests her hip against the bar, ready with an innuendo, but Vanessa breezes straight past her and into the backroom. She does a quick sweep of the pub — only one punter, Victoria, who knows how to serve herself — and follows her wife through to their living room.

When she looks back on this moment, she wishes she hadn’t, that she’d let Vanessa ruminate alone. Things had already been turning in the wrong direction. She knows that. Things had already been following a chain reaction; Vanessa still might’ve left anyway. But this had only given her more ammunition to work with. This had only made it hurt more.

Vanessa’s back is to her when she enters the room. Her shoulders are taut beneath the navy blue of her blazer. Charity reaches out and squeezes it and Vanessa shrugs her off, turning to her with guilty eyes, and Charity already knows what it is she’s going to say.


	2. Chapter 2

The notification stares up at her from the screen. A text from Johnny — _John—_  letting her know that he’s decided to go ahead and meet Camila without telling Vanessa.

He sends another through, telling her when and where he’s going to meet them, in exactly two days, and her hand trembles a little more than she’d like as she texts back her reply, offering to drive him to save him a train ride.

The thing is— despite her life being split into _before_ and _after_ Vanessa; despite her desperately unlearning everything to do with Vanessa— Johnny’s _her_ son. He had been for almost six years, no matter what any laws, or anyone, said. Though she finds loving her children a bit like getting blood out of a stone, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t care, or that it hasn’t felt like a Johnny-shaped hole had been left in her life, just like it had been with Ryan, and Debbie before. She loses her kids time and time again, unable to hang onto them, and is either too much or not enough when she finally gets to be a mother to them.

Charity lets out a small sigh as she locks her phone, slipping it back into her jacket pocket.

“You alright?”

Debbie’s watching her curiously as she settles onto the sofa with her.

“What? Yeah.”

“You’re acting weird.”

“No I’m not.”

“If you say so,” Debbie trills, taking a sip of her coffee. She frowns down at the sofa. “God, this thing’s uncomfortable.”

“I think it’s older than the bloody house.”

“Speaking of which, any luck finding a place of your own?”

Charity shoots her a dirty look. “That wasn’t smooth.”

“You’ve lived here long enough, Mum.”

“Yes, I do know that. I’m the one living here, thank you.”

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. Charity carefully orients the screen away from Debbie, reading the message from Johnny. It’s an address and time, telling her where to meet him before they go to Camila. She can feel Debbie’s eyes practically boring through her but doesn’t say a word before she sends a thumbs up emoji in reply and locks her phone again, keeping it face-down on her lap this time.

“Who’s that?”

“No-one.”

“You’re texting no-one.”

“That’s right.” Charity crosses her arms over her chest. “So, go on then. Tell me about the latest Sarah drama.”

Debbie sighs. “It’s not _drama._ She just worries. The wedding’s still over six months away but she’s been calling me practically every day fussing about stupid stuff like flowers.”

“Well, Indigo has plenty of money for her to spend it on.”

“A stupid amount.”

“Like his stupid name.”

“Mother.” Debbie’s eyes narrow. “He’s a nice kid.”

“Yeah, he’s a nice kid, with a stupid name.”

“You’re one to talk about weddings and money. How many extravagant ones have you had, again?”

“Oi. Rude.” She picks at an invisible thread on her jeans. “Mine and Vanessa’s wasn’t.”

“No.” Debbie’s voice is soft. “It was beautiful.”

The phone in her lap buzzes again. She flips it so only she can see, revealing a single heart emoji from Johnny.

Before her eyes can burn with tears, before her throat can feel like it’s choking, she takes a deep breath. She can do this. She can be a part of her son’s life, whether he remembers her or not, whether he thinks of her as a someone he used to know, whether he thinks of her as a stranger. Anything. Any part of his life. That’s a gift she thought she’d never receive.

“Seriously, what is going on with you?”

“Nothing.” _Everything._ She quickly slips her phone back into her jacket pocket. “Go on. Tell me about these stupid flowers. Oh, let me guess — she’s having violets.”

 

* * *

 

Vanessa calls her once, in the after.

It’s been five months. She asks to meet. She claims she has some of Charity’s things. Charity packs the few shirts Vanessa had left behind, but keeps a yellow jumper hidden beneath her pillow.

They meet in a café halfway between the village and Preston. Traffic makes her late, by almost twenty minutes, and rain drenches her as she runs from her car to the building. Vanessa’s sat nibbling on a blueberry muffin, unperturbed. Six months may have passed, a whole mess may have amounted between them, but she’s still used to dealing with Charity. The thought makes Charity want to get on her knees and beg for forgiveness. She doesn’t.

She dumps the bag of Vanessa’s things on the table between them, furiously trying to get herself under control. Who cares that Vanessa’s hair is shorter now, that it’s a darker shade of blonde? Who cares that she’s wearing a blue coat Charity’s never seen before? Who cares that she’s still the most beautiful, radiant thing Charity has ever seen, even when she watches Charity with such careful indifference, even when there’s no warmth between them?

“I hadn’t realised I’d left so much stuff,” Vanessa comments, nudging the bag to one side and placing a smaller carrier bag beside it. “It’s just a bracelet and blouse of yours.”

“Thank you.”

Her tongue feels too heavy in her mouth. The words taste fuzzy, wrong. Vanessa finishes the muffin and stands, taking her bag.

“You’re going?” Charity asks.

Vanessa sighs. “What else did you think was going to happen, Charity?”

Charity doesn’t have an answer for that one.

She grabs her bag from the table and follows Vanessa outside. There’s a little bit of cover above them, protection from the rain. She spots Vanessa’s car parked in the bays opposite, but Vanessa doesn’t move. Charity bumps into her as she steps out of the door in a daze, world narrowing to the smell of Vanessa’s perfume when she turns to face her.

“You know, for the record, if it means anything to you at all,” Vanessa murmurs, “I don’t regret it for a second. Me and you.”

 _Say something,_ her brain urges. _Say it back._

But because she’s grown cold over these past six months, because she can no longer remember what it felt like to have the privilege of calling Vanessa her wife, she says nothing.

“I’m still furious with you, though. That hasn’t changed.”

“Didn’t think it would, babe.”

Vanessa takes a step back. The rain dampens her hair instantly and Charity wants to step forward, wants to run her hands through it, wants to press her mouth to Vanessa's. She wants to remind her how they were once whole. They weren't always broken.

Vanessa tilts her head to the side. She almost smiles.

“Good luck with your life, Charity.”

Charity’s reaches out and catches an errant strand of Vanessa's hair caught in the wind. She tucks it behind her ear, letting her fingers dance gently along the line of Vanessa's jaw.

“Good luck, kid.”

If Vanessa’s a little misty-eyed, she doesn’t say a word, because the blue in them is still too cool to amount to anything. The damage has already been done.

Charity watches Vanessa cross the car park in a light jog, pulling her hood up to cover herself from the rain. She stays standing there until she drives away, until her brake lights fade into the distance, until she really has no reason to be standing there at all.

She looks into the carrier bag Vanessa had given her. It really is just a bracelet and a blouse.

She dumps them in the nearest bin and heads home to Wishing Well.

 

* * *

 

Johnny’s stood on the very edge of the pavement on a high street she assumes is far enough away from home that Vanessa won’t catch them, balancing on the balls of his feet. Charity pulls up and narrowly avoids running his toes over when he practically leaps into the car while it’s still moving.

“Most people wait until the car’s stopped, you know.”

Her snarkiness doesn’t phase him. He smiles at her, so much like Vanessa it makes her ache.

“I’m excited! Aren’t you?”

“Edge of my bloody seat, kid.”

The drive from Preston to Lancaster brings her almost halfway home. Johnny bounces in his seat, livelier than she’s expected from him, behaving like Moses when he’s on a sugar rush. He switches the radio channel six times in the first five minutes before she swats his hand away. He winds the window up and down endlessly, despite the fact it’s winter and the weather outside is grey and miserable. He chatters about nonsense. She starts to zone out, but pulls herself back in. This is her son. She cares what he has to say.

In the half hour car ride, she learns about his friends, about the subject he studies at school. She learns that he wants to become an architect; that he visits his granddad every other weekend; that he used to be on the school hockey team, but lost enthusiasm for it after he broke his arm last year. Johnny gives up information about himself easily, almost like he _wants_ to fill in the gaps of her knowledge, like he realises how deeply she craves to know him, to know what parts of his life she’s missed.

It’s a ridiculous notion. He’s just a kid. He may act wise beyond his years, but there’s no way he can see through her fifty-layers-deep reason for helping him. No. He’s chatty, that’s all, she decides. Nothing more.

The house they pull up at is a small, humble place. It reminds her of the few she and Vanessa had looked at before she’d settled on moving into The Woolpack. Charity swallows. That had been the worst mistake they’d made. Not one month in, Vanessa had been stabbed. And then… well.

She shuts off the ignition, surprised to find that Johnny’s gone completely silent. He’s staring at the house dolefully, passing his phone back and forth between his hands.

“Hey.” She reaches over and stops him. “You’ve got this.”

“What if she doesn’t like me?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

Johnny glances at her out of the corner of his eye. “So… you like me?”

 _I love you, kid, and once, you loved me._ The words don’t make it out. She ruffles his hair instead, delighted when she groans and bats her hands away the same way Noah used to.

They clamber out of the car and walk up to the door. Johnny stares at her expectantly, but she raises her eyebrows in reply. He sighs and then reaches out with a shaking hand, pressing the doorbell.

Nothing happens. They stand for thirty seconds, staring at each other. She can see the anxiety gnawing away at Johnny as the time ticks by. A minute passes. Just as she nudges him aside and goes to grab the knocker, the door swings open, revealing a plain, kind-looking woman, and behind her, her mirror image, only shorter, and younger.

“I’m Camila!” She chirps, pushing past her mother and instantly reaching for Johnny’s hand. Her dark hair’s pulled back in a plait, running down the length of her back, revealing her face open and excited to the both of them. “Are you Johnny?”

Johnny just stares. She elbows him and he coughs.

“Yeah. Uh, yeah, that’s me.”

The woman watches the exchange with a smile and offers her hand to Charity as Camila begins to drag Johnny into the house.

“I’m Sofia. You must be Charity.”

Charity shakes her hand. Sofia has a strong, firm grip, despite her demeanour.

“That’s me.”

Sofia ushers her inside, revealing an open-plan kitchen and living room. Camila’s already dragged Johnny to the middle, showing him paintings she’s done on a small easel. She has to give credit to Johnny, he absorbs them all, complimenting her rudimentary painting skills with genuinity. Sofia guides Charity over to the kitchen even though she’d rather stand and observe the pair. She finds her attention diverted from them as Sofia begins to make her a mug of tea.

Sofia pushes the mug into her hand. “I’m sorry your wife couldn’t be here today.”

“My wife,” Charity repeats.

“Vanessa, isn’t it? John said she was busy with work.”

“Yeah,” Charity murmurs, almost a whisper. She clears her throat. “Yeah, she had to cover. Her boss is a right jobsworth.”

“Well, it’s an important job isn’t it, veterinary work. What is it you do?”

_Oh, you know, cheat and con and lie. Even to you, about my non-existent relationship with my ex-wife and her kid._

“Nothing fancy. Vanessa’s always been the heroic out of the two of us.”

“Well, I’m sure she appreciates you being here for John today.”

If Vanessa had any idea what was going on here today, Charity’s pretty sure that she’d knock seven bells out of her, even if she’s tiny. Johnny’s the only person Vanessa would go to the end of the world for to protect.

Charity takes a big gulp of tea at the thought. It's too hot and blisters her tongue.

“I have to say, it was quite a shock, when I found out he lived so close. Almost like fate. Camila’s been dying to meet him ever since I told her she has a brother.”

Charity glances over to them now. Johnny’s sat cross-legged on the floor, Camila clipping a small, plastic apron around his neck, telling him that they have to be careful when they use the paints. She’s struck suddenly with the image that this is what Noah used to be like with Johnny and Moses — the dutiful older brother, letting them get away with murder.

Panic creeps up through her. What if this is it? What if, now that Johnny’s found what he’s been looking for, he gives up on her? They have no ties to each other, after all. Her own kids barely want to be around her on a good day, and they have no choice in the matter. Now that Johnny’s found his new family, the old memories vague and hazy in his mind, does that mean she’s out?

“I’m surprised Kirin told you about him,” she says, instead of letting any of her panic out. “From what Vanessa told me… he wasn’t the best father.”

“No. I don’t think he was. He tried with Camila, though. Absolutely doted on her. I think he was trying to make up for what he’d done, until the guilt got too much and, well, after one too many drinks the truth came out.”

“So, what, you just left?”

“Yes. I just left.”

“And… Kirin. Does he know where you are?”

“He does. I let him speak to Camila on the phone sometimes. But don’t worry, there’s no chance he’ll be over here anytime soon. He’d only be arrested, anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“And rightly so.”

Charity nods. “Rightly so.”

Sofia encourages her to sit on the sofa, watching Johnny and Camila play. Camila instructs him on how to paint the perfect cat. Johnny watches and listens to her seriously, even though he’s wearing an apron three times too small for him. Camila giggles when he pretends to reach out and try and paint the tip of her nose and cheeks with whiskers. He ends up chasing her around the room, wielding the paintbrush. When he catches her, he scoops her up, throwing her over his shoulder. She squeals, kicking her legs, and the smile on Johnny’s face is so wide, so bright, that she lets herself sink into the sofa and pretend, just for a moment, that this is her life.

 

* * *

 

Vanessa twists one of Charity’s curls around her finger as they lay in bed. Charity stares up at the ceiling, seeing nothing but the photograph of Ryan, Luke, and Molly imprinted on the inside of her eyes each time she blinks. She’s only remembering to breathe because of the gentle weight of Vanessa pressed against her, one thigh hooked over her own, her cheek soft against Charity’s collarbone.

“Charity,” she murmurs, and she screws her eyes shut, willing Vanessa not to say what comes next, “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but — ”

“Then don’t say it.”

Vanessa’s finger drops the curl, letting her hand dance along the column of Charity’s throat.

Men used to wrap their hands around her throat, sometimes. None of them were ever gentle. None of them were ever — normal. They used her, like a piece of meat, and left her bruised, left her gasping for air in the wrong way. It’d make the hair on the back of her neck rise if any of the men she was with after Bails touched her neck. She’d shove them off, even if it meant losing out on money. Even if it was a power thing, like with Cain, when he could see right through her, see her weaknesses, knew how to play her until she was like putty in his hands.

But with Vanessa, it never feels like a threat. She only ever feels safe.

“How could he do it?” Charity asks hoarsely. “How can he — sit there, and make nice with them, knowing what their dad did?”

“Bails is his dad, too, Charity. They’re just children. They’re no more responsible than Ryan is.”

Charity lets her eyes open again, shifting so she can see the top of Vanessa’s head, the honey-blonde hair. It's a soft place to confess her fears.

“But he raised them, Ness. They probably still believe he’s innocent.”

“Maybe. But they’re Ryan’s brother and sister. He’s allowed to get to know them.”

“What, us Dingles not enough?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Charity.”

The words are stern, firm, but Vanessa’s gentle touch against her jawline softens the blow. She presses a kiss to the edge, so gentle she barely feels it. Charity catches Vanessa’s fingers and tangles them with her own. Their engagement rings slide against each other.

“You’re always more than enough. For everyone,” Vanessa murmurs. She props herself up on her elbow and drops a kiss against Charity’s lips. “For me.”

She catches Vanessa before she can pull away, keeping her close, so that their noses brush. Vanessa makes her so affectionate, the version of herself before Vanessa would be sick to the stomach thinking of how much she craves her, needs her touch just to feel reassured.

“Promise?”

Vanessa kisses her again, deeper this time.

“Promise.”

 

* * *

 

They face each other in living room of The Woolpack, in shared silence, after Vanessa speaks.

Charity glances to the clock on the wall. Eleven hours to go.

But the fury inside of her — she doesn’t know how to keep that contained for eleven hours. How to keep things going to plan.

She crosses her arms over her chest.

“Who kissed who?”

“She kissed me.”

Charity stares, waiting for the truth, because the retort her wife gives is too quick and too rehearsed. Under her gaze, Vanessa’s lower lip wobbles and Charity turns away, letting her face fall into her palms. Her wedding ring feels cool against her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Vanessa whispers, and Charity feels hands reaching for her. She shrugs them off like Vanessa had shrugged her off. “Charity, I’m sorry — ”

“Did you sleep with her?”

She still can’t look at Vanessa. The hurt, the betrayal, it crawls across her skin, leaves her feeling sick and aching.

“No.”

“Did you want to?”

“No!”

Charity sets her jaw. She finally turns. Tears have slipped from her wife’s eyes, leaving smudged mascara in their wake.

She realises suddenly that Vanessa’s lip gloss from his morning is gone. It’s a cold realisation. Vanessa’d started wearing that lip gloss shortly after they’d gotten married. A birthday present from Noah that she’d loved more than they thought she would. Every morning, she’s watched Vanessa with that little tube. Every morning, she watches her shake it, then swipe the gloss across her lips. Most mornings, she laughs and tries to duck out of the way of Charity’s kiss, but only half-heartedly. Most mornings, she lets Charity catch her.

Someone else has tasted that gloss, now. That subtle strawberry flavour. A small part of domesticity, a part of their life that’s tiny and inconsequential, has been shared with someone else. Like someone else has stepped into the room, watching their little habits, and made them their own.

“So,” Charity tries to keep her voice calm, “what is it she’s got that I haven’t?”

“Nothing.”

Charity barks a laugh. “Well, there must be something, babe.”

“I promise you, Charity. I want _you._ She’s— she’s nothing.”

“Oh, right. You want me. Only me. So that’s why you’re going around kissing other women, is it? Feeling so guilty about the fact that you want to fuck her that you come back and tell your wife?”

Vanessa scrubs at her tears, scrowling.

“I don’t want to — ”

“Oh, I don’t blame you babe. God knows it’s been a while since either of us got any.”

“It’s just… you’ve been so busy. You never want to _do_ anything, go anywhere, or when you do it’s not with me and I don’t know where you are. I thought — I was scared that you didn’t want me anymore.”

“So you throw yourself at the first woman to cross your path?”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“No? What, was it romantic? Did she light some candles before she tried to get you into bed?”

“Stop it, Charity,” Vanessa protests. “I didn’t want her. I just miss you. That’s why I’m here.”

“You miss me? I’m right here, babe.”

Charity sweeps her arms dramatically. She’s aware she’s being over the top. That she’s done plenty worse to far more people before Vanessa than a simple kiss, and not stopped to think twice about it. That in eleven hours she’s going to betray Vanessa’s trust anyway.

It’s just — this isn’t how it’s meant to go. _She’s_ the one that’s supposed to do the wrecking. Vanessa is reliable, and caring, and _safe._ Vanessa’s supposed to be the one that she can trust without a shadow of a doubt. She’s not supposed to be giving her reasons to push her away. None of this makes any sense.

“Charity.” Vanessa steps forward, but Charity steps back. “Please. We can -- I love you. I want to make this work.”

“I don’t know how, babe. What, you think I’m ever going to be okay with you going back and working with that tart? You think I can trust you again?”

Vanessa’s eyes harden. “I trusted you after Cain.”

“That was different. I never wanted him. I’ve never wanted anyone but you since the second we got together.”

Charity hates herself for letting the words out. She wants to snatch them back. They sound too much like a forgiveness she doesn’t feel.

“I’ve never wanted anyone but you, either,” Vanessa says softly, with such sincerity Charity feels her throat clog. “That’s all I’ll ever want. Just you.”

 

* * *

 

Charity’s doing the walk of shame from whatever-his-name-was’ flat when she spots Tracy packing boxes into the back of David’s car. They make eye contact and Tracy gives her a once-over and it makes Charity feel dirty suddenly, like she needs to go home and wash the smell of him off, even if it’s been two years and Tracy has no right to judge how she spends her nights.

Charity heads on over to them, though, because the amount of boxes Tracy’s packing has her worried.

“Going somewhere?”

Tracy’s lips set in a thin line as she dumps another box on top of the pile in the boot. There’s so many that they’ll obscure the view once the boot is closed. Most of it probably shoes and clothes.

“I’m moving to Preston,” Tracy tells her shortly.

It’s not a surprise, and yet she turns her hands to fists in her pockets.

Tracy’s the last thing she has left of Vanessa. Frank had moved to be closer to her and Johnny a year ago. Rhona had swanned off with Pete and Leo to help look after her elderly mother. Tracy had stayed behind, a reminder of the life she used to have. Sometimes, Tracy would even let her know how Johnny and Vanessa are doing, even if Charity acts like she doesn’t care. She thinks Tracy understands her more than her own damn family, at this point.

“Thought you hated the idea of going there.”

“I did.” Tracy closes the boot and sighs, turning to face Charity. “V’s engaged.”

All of the air is sucked out of her lungs.

“What?”

“I’m sorry. I thought… I thought she’d come back. But I guess she’s pretty serious about her life there.”

Charity doesn’t hear any of it.

She pictures Vanessa with another woman’s ring on her finger. A new parental figure for Johnny. Accepting another woman’s _will you be my wife?_

Charity spins on one foot, steadily walking away. Two years? That’s all it takes for Vanessa to move on from her and get engaged to someone else?

“Charity!”

She keeps walking. She lets her feet take over and carry her far, far away from the village they’d met in. She lets herself leave like Vanessa had.

 

* * *

 

 

Johnny gets in the car, because his Mum tells him to.

He clips his seatbelt on but turns, watching his Mum and Ma yelling at each other in the street. His Mum’s throwing their things into the boot. There’s not much left now. Not after everything that happened. Their belongings fit into a suitcase and a bin bag.

His Mum turns, catching him staring, and slams the boot shut. The words are muted and far away then. He wants to undo his seatbelt and go outside. He wants to ask his Ma why Mum is crying. He wants Ma to tell him why he and Mum have to go away on their own.

Mum rips the driver’s door open. She reaches over and pats his knee reassuringly, but he doesn’t feel very assured, not when his Ma’s standing in the street, not doing a thing to stop them. Not coming with them.

Ma raises a hand and waves at him, a small thing, and Johnny waves back.

It’s this memory of Charity he remembers most. That feeling — of her being safe, strong, _brave —_  and leaving her behind.

 

* * *

 

 

She’s staring up at the ceiling, picturing it. Vanessa and Marnie. The vet tech. She screws her eyes shut but the images come flooding forward anyway. They’re together in the vets, laughing and sharing secrets Charity isn’t privy to. Marnie’s hand settles on Vanessa’s back in a move that should be inconsequential between two friends. Yet it’s a move that propels her wife forward.

Vanessa had said it’d barely even lasted a second. That’d she’d apologised and left and that she’d come home to confess instantly.

But there’s more laughter, in these images her brain creates. There’s more joy in Vanessa’s eyes than Charity is capable of giving her.

In the bed beside her, Vanessa rolls, snuffling a little as her legs tangle in the sheet. She opens one eye and catches Charity watching her through the cold blue light emanating from the digital clock on the bedside cabinet.

“Okay?” Vanessa murmurs, fingers curling around Charity’s wrist. She watches Charity nod and squeezes. “I love you. Just you, Charity.”

The words make her throat narrow. She inhales sharply through her nose.

“I love you too,” Charity tells her, and because it might be the last time she can, because she doesn’t think she could ever really be angry at Vanessa, because she wants to remember what this slice of heaven feels like, she rolls and covers her wife’s body with her own. Vanessa startles but welcomes Charity with a soft hum, giggling every time she breaks the kiss to repeat those words. “I love you too.”

The smell of smoke slips into the room while they’re distracted. 


	3. Chapter 3

She’d tried to forget it a couple times. The way Vanessa tasted on her tongue. The way her hands had been gentle. The way their bodies fit like they belonged. She’d tried to forget with men, at first. Broader bodies with rougher hands. Voices nothing more than dirty growls under the sheets. They had been so different to Vanessa, yet she was all Charity could think about. There’d been a couple women too, but after she’d found herself bringing home a string of women who at first glance could be mistaken for her ex-wife, she’d stopped spending the night with anyone.

After two years of this loneliness, of feeling present yet separate to her own body, her own pleasures, she downs too many glasses of wine and calls a number that’s been disconnected. She hadn’t expected it to work, yet she still lets out an angry yell when it doesn’t, launching her phone across the room. She hears the screen crack when it bounces off of the wall.

She reaches under the bed, pulling out the small box of photos she’d tricked everyone else into thinking she’d thrown out. There’s only four or five that weren’t damaged by the fire. Some have a strange sheen to them from smoke that’s settled and never quite faded away. Even as her tears land on them, the photos stay weathered, as though they’re decades older than they really are. Charity sniffs and wipes at her cheeks, sifting through the photos, until she settles on one that’s just Vanessa.

There’s nothing remarkable about the picture. Vanessa’s simply smiling up at the camera, cheek against her palm, morning light filtering in through the window behind her.

They’d been in bed —  two days into their marriage —  when she’d taken this. Vanessa had tried to get her to throw it out, complaining about her messy hair and lack of makeup. And really, Charity’s not entirely sure why she’s kept it all these years, why she’s insisted on having a physical copy of it and not just on her phone.

“You don’t own me,” she tells the smiling picture. “None of them _ever_ owned me.”

Vanessa had never wanted to own her. She only ever wanted to love her.

Charity cries harder. “You don’t own me or my body, yeah?”

There’s a knock on the door. “Charity, love?”

“Sod off!”

She hears a small clink. “There’s a brew outside if you want it.”

Charity considers yelling again, but then she hears Lisa move away, until her footsteps fade to mute. She collapses back against the bed, the photo clutched to her chest, as the room spins around her.

“You don’t own me,” she repeats, quieter this time.

Anger flares brittle but brief in her chest and she sighs, feeling her tears drying on her cheeks. She holds the photo up to look at it one more time. Vanessa Woodfield was, and probably always will be, the most beautiful person she had ever been given the privilege to know. She had ruined her for everyone else.

This is it, now. This is all she’ll ever be. Lonely and unfulfilled by others’ touch, blinded by a burning sun that she doesn’t get to orbit anymore.

“Miss ya, kid.”

 

* * *

 

Johnny’s eyes appear over the top of her crossword puzzle.

Charity flicks the paper halfway down, quirking her eyebrows when she finds the toddler standing with a small black box held in his outstretched palms. He’s watching her with a suspicious amount of calm.

“What’s this then, Johnnybobs?”

Johnny takes a step closer, bumping her stomach with the box.

“Yours.”

With a quick scope of the back room to make sure she isn’t being pranked by Noah, again, Charity sets the crossword to one side and takes the box from Johnny. It’s innocent-looking enough that she’s not worried he might’ve stolen it from a punter — and if he has, she’ll make sure to help him hone his skills whenever Vanessa isn’t looking — but the velvet material it’s made of makes her pause.

“Where’d you get this?”

He climbs up onto the sofa with her, his feet dangling off the end. “Mummy’s ring.”

“You know, the exciting part’s the ring she’s wearing on her finger, not the box. You’ve seen it, right?”

Johnny just pushes the box deeper into her palm. “Open.”

With an over-exaggerated eye roll, Charity pops the lid open, expecting to find it empty. After all, it’s impossible to get Vanessa to part with her engagement ring. The only time she does is when she has a shower, and she’s constantly peeking her head out from behind the curtain to make sure it’s still sitting on the side, as if Charity’s going to change her mind and swipe it when she isn’t looking.

Yet this box isn’t empty. There’s a ring sitting inside. One that isn’t Vanessa’s.

It’s a little more ostentatious than her fiancee’s but still beautiful. A larger diamond with two smaller ones set either side on a silver band. Charity stares at it, momentarily speechless, then turns on her future stepson.

“Where’d you get this? Paddy’s room?”

She feels oddly ill at the thought of her cousin and Paddy getting hitched.

Johnny shakes his head.

“Don’t tell me you’ve actually gone and taken this from a customer.”

Johnny frowns. “Mummy’s ring.”

“Kid, I already gave your mum a ring. I think I’d remember buying two.”

“No!” He giggles, trying to reach over to take the ring from the box. She holds it from his reach. “Mummy’s ring for you.”

Charity snaps the box shut, heart thudding. Okay. _Okay._ That’s — actually not something she’d considered might happen. She’s had plenty of engagement rings, engagements and weddings in her time. All as mediocre and unsatisfying as the other simply because they’d helped pave her way into money, not love.

But this — this is —

“Johnny!”

Charity blinks. Vanessa’s stood in the doorway, glaring at her son. He waves at her.

Charity stands up suddenly, thrusting the ring box towards Vanessa. Vanessa crosses the room slowly and takes it from her without letting their skin come into contact. She doesn’t meet Charity’s eyes.

“You know I don’t — I don’t expect, or even need — ”

“I know.” Vanessa nods, rolling the box between her hands. “But I wanted to.”

“Yeah?”

“I wasn’t going to make a big fuss. I was going to do something nice. Something to make you feel…” Vanesa purses her lips and shrugs, apparently lost for the right word. Charity’s heart hammers in her chest. “The surprise is ruined now, I guess.”

“Yeah, well,” Charity throws a thumb back towards Johnny, “little Sherlock over there has an eye for jewellery.”

“He gets that from you.”

Charity’s knees go weak. In a good way. It doesn’t feel like falling, when she’s with Vanessa. 

Charity clears her throat and reaches out, catching one of Vanessa’s hands in her own.

“Go on then, Vanessa Woodfield,” she says, voice a little rough with emotion. “Propose to me.”

Vanessa’s smile is wide and bright. Like the sun coming out after a storm.

She holds the velvet box open between them. Charity’s too focused on the way Vanessa’s eyes shine with tears to even look at the ring now. This thing between them — this love, this _everything —_ still rattles through her every damn time Vanessa looks at her. She’s never been loved like this. She never wants to be loved by anyone but Vanessa ever again.

“Charity Dingle,” Vanessa murmurs, and her voice is how she imagines stars sound, “how d’you fancy forever with me?”

“Thought you’d never ask, babe,” Charity replies before they kiss.

 

* * *

 

Johnny’s body is pale and small on the hospital bed.

Charity enters the room, remembering that she promised to be strong, and immediately fills her arms with Vanessa. Her wife turns her face into her neck, making the skin wet with her tears instantly. Charity’s own vision blurs with tears that don’t spill.

“Charity,” Vanessa keens against her, hands bunching the back of her jacket, “I can’t —  _Charity —"_

She almost says it. There and then. Her grip on Vanessa tightens painfully, eyes greedily drinking in every detail of Johnny, and she almost says it.

 

* * *

 

“D’you reckon he thinks about me?”

Charity frowns, turning away from watching Camila swinging along the monkey bars of the playground. Johnny’s staring intently at Camila without really seeing, the ice cream he’s holding melting in his hand and slowly dripping down his wrist. She nudges him and he shakes his head, wiping it away.

“Who?”

“Kirin.” Johnny pauses, like he’s weighing the name in his mouth. “Me dad.”

Something inside her protests at the word. She crosses her arms over her torso and takes a deep breath.

“Honestly? I dunno, kid. I never really knew him. But I’ll tell you what. Dads? They’re not all they’re cracked up to be. ”

Johnny’s eyes cut over to her. “What about mums?”

“You really have to ask?” Charity tilts her head. “Your mum loves the bones of you, kid.”

He keeps watching her. Charity starts to feel strangely itchy, uncertain what he’s looking for.

“So you think I’m better off now, then?”

 _You have Vanessa,_ she thinks, _of course you are._

“That’s not for me to decide,” she settles on saying instead, “but I think you’ve got a good thing going. Don’t you?”

Camila calls for him over by the swings. Johnny finally turns away from studying her and Charity lets her shoulders drop. She watches Johnny take a bite straight out of the ice cream the way Moses does before he ditches it in a bin, joining his sister.

 

* * *

 

At his first day at his new school, Johnny tells his teacher about his Ma.

They’re doing paints. It’s hot so the teacher has them follow her outside and tells them to paint the fields and flowers or even the ladybirds that land on their arms. Johnny starts with big splashes of green for the grass and the bluest blue he can find for the sky.

And then he paints their old house, the way it used to look. He paints himself and his Mum. He paints Moses and Noah and Ryan and Debbie. He paints his Ma last, right on the other side of him, wearing her pyjamas because sometimes she’d let him and Moses have a pyjama day if she was still wearing hers after ten o’clock, and those days were the best, because it meant watching movies and eating popcorn and Ma being theirs for the _whole_ day.

“What’s this, Johnny?” Miss Raja asks, appearing at his side. “Is this your family?”

“That’s all my brothers. And my sister, she’s the oldest,” he tells her, accidentally painting a streak of pink across Debbie’s face when he points with the paintbrush.

“There’s so many of you.”

“That’s my Ma,” Johnny continues, making sure not to get any pink on her. “She didn’t come with us to the new house.”

Miss Raja’s hand settles on his back. “What about your siblings?”

“No. It’s just me and Mum.” He dabs at his Mum’s face with pink, smearing it across until she’s just a blob of colour. He keeps going until the paint runs out on the brush. Miss Raja’s still watching him. “But Ma will come and get me. We’re like this.”

He tries to cross his fingers but drops the paintbrush at their feet. It lands in one of the paint pots, splashing over his new school shoes in the purple he’d used for his Ma’s pyjamas.

His Mum’s quiet when she picks him up. Miss Raja gives her the painting and Johnny wonders if she’s mad that he coloured over her, but when they get home he still gets to have his after-school biscuits, so he guesses he’s not in trouble.

Mum sits across from him at the table. She sets the painting between them. Johnny feels the crumbs from the biscuits spill across his laps.

“Johnny,” she says softly, “I need to talk to you about this.”

“That one was you,” he interrupts, pointing to the pink blob.

“Johnny, you’re not going to see Ma again.”

Johnny drops his biscuit. It lands in his lap then bounces off of his leg, landing on the wooden floor with a muted _thud._ He hate this new house. Everything in it is too quiet.

“Is she dead?”

He thinks he might cry.

Mum reaches out and grasps his hand. She’s too strong and he wants to shake her off.

“Darling, she’s going to stay in the village. She’s not coming here.”

“Why?”

“It’s… it’s for adults to know —”

“But she’s Ma,” he replies. “She’s always with me.”

Mum rolls her eyes to the ceiling. He can tell there’s tears in her eyes and he doesn’t know why _she’s_ crying, when he’s the one that’s lost a mother.

“She’s _Ma_ ,” he repeats. “We all fit. She can go in your room and Moses can share with me.”

Mum blows out a wave of air that briefly lifts her fringe in the air. When she meets his eyes again he can’t see any tears.

“She’s not your Ma anymore. I’m sorry, Johnny. She’s not coming.”

“You’re lying!”

He rips his hand from hers and pushes away from the table. His chair scrapes against the floor. Mum stands too, rounding the table, but he backs away from her.

“I hate you!” He screams. “I want Ma!”

Johnny spins around and dashes through their small kitchen, out to the narrow hallway. He thinks he’s going to turn and head up the stairs to his room to scream and shout and cry into a pillow. His feet keep moving towards the front door, and then he races out onto the street, ignoring his Mum calling for him.

 

* * *

 

They shout and snipe at each other in public, so unlike them it makes the fire of anger burn brighter in her chest. Vanessa’s chucking the few things she and Johnny have into the boot of her car and Charity almost can’t believe it because she had _pushed_ for this. The guilt had consumed her and left her nothing but skeleton. She had pushed and pushed, needing Vanessa to be the one who left —

And now she is, and she doesn’t want it.

“ _Preston?_ ” Charity repeats outrageously. “You can’t take him all the way there, how the hell am I ever gonna see him?”

“That’s the point, Charity. You won’t.”

Vanessa turns to shut the boot. Charity catches Johnny staring and then Vanessa slams it shut, angling her body so that Johnny’s obscured from her view.

“You can’t take him from me,” Charity argues, because she hadn’t expected _this,_ she hadn’t expected to lose them both, “I have rights, Vanessa.”

“What’re you gonna do? Go to the police?” Vanessa smiles wryly. “I’ve more dirt on you than you have on me, Charity. I’d like to see you try.”

Charity sucks in a shocked breath. Vanessa’s face has twisted into something she doesn’t recognise. The worst part is that she can’t even blame her. This is all her doing. Vanessa is running from her and Charity can’t find a reason to chase after her.

“He’s my son too,” Charity murmurs.

Vanessa laughs lowly. “You lost the right to call him that a long time ago.”

It still turns her stomach. It’s almost been a month, and she still feels like she’s right back there, the heat surrounding them, the air thick and choking, and Johnny too far away. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to forget that feeling no matter how hard she tries.

“Now, for the first time in your life, Charity, do the right thing,” Vanessa sighs. She wipes away the tears on her cheeks. “Let us go.”

Charity’s throat clogs. She thinks she’s going to say _I still love you._

“Okay,” she whispers instead, and she thinks it means the same thing.

“Goodbye, Charity.”

Vanessa storms to the driver door. She rips it open and doesn’t look back and somehow that hurts more than anything else. Charity’s eyes seek out Johnny and finds him watching her, lower lip wobbling. She lifts one hand and waves goodbye.

Johnny’s small hand lifts to wave back just as the car pulls away. She’s still waving even once they’re gone.

 

* * *

 

“Happy birthday.”

Vanessa slides the manila envelope across the table as she says it, dropping a kiss to the top of Charity’s head. Charity reaches back, intending on a cheeky squeeze for her birthday now that the kids are off at school, but her wife twirls out of her grasp with a teasing smile.

“Later,” Vanessa assures her, nodding to the envelope. “Open your present.”

Charity rolls her eyes and plasters a fake smile on her face. She doesn’t see what the fuss is about. It’s an envelope. She’s not entirely sure what could constitute as a present yet still fit into it— unless they’re dirty pictures from Vanessa, in which case, she’s not complaining.

But it’s not pictures. She pulls the letter free and reads _LETTER OF ADOPTION APPLICATION._

“Ness.” She almost crumples the paper out of shock. The air leaves her. She has no idea what to say. “Ness.”

Vanessa moves closer, roping an arm around her shoulders, hip bumping against her arm. Normally the touch would ground her, but right now it feels like her mind and body are separate. She knows that she’s here in the back room of The Woolpack, but her mind’s drifted out of the window, doing a couple backflips while it’s at it. She can’t make the two reconnect.

“Sorry if I’ve jumped the gun on this one,” Vanessa murmurs, “but you two are so close and he calls you Ma, I just thought —"

Charity pushes to a stand, covering Vanessa’s mouth with her own roughly. Vanessa moans, the papers crushed between their chests. They stumble until Vanessa’s back hits the wall and her hands grip Charity’s shoulders.

Charity pulls away, gasping for air. “But — Kirin, wouldn’t you need permission —”

“He never signed the birth certificate.” Vanessa shrugs, like it doesn’t hurt, even though Charity feels anger build up towards the man who left the two of them alone. Vanessa presses her thumb to the edge of Charity’s lips. “So it’s up to you.”

“And Johnny.”

“I spoke to him about it. Well, as best as you can talk to a five year old about adoption.”

“And?”

“Well, I gave you the papers, didn’t I?” Vanessa smiles kindly. She leans forwards until their foreheads press together. “So what do you think?”

“I think you’re absolutely mental.”

“Charity,” she says sternly, meeting her eyes, “you’re a fantastic mother, no matter what you tell yourself. He’s lucky to have you in his life. And he loves you.”

“I love him.”

Vanessa gives her that same soft smile again. The one that makes her heart feel like it’s tap dancing in her throat.

“Good,” Vanessa hums and bites at her lower lip. “Charity?”

“Yeah?

“It’s later now.”

She needs no more instruction than that. Her mouth is on Vanessa’s instantly.

 

* * *

 

Johnny wants to go home thirty seconds after he runs out of the house.

But he keeps going. He has no idea where he’s headed, but he doesn’t stop. They’ve lived here for three weeks and he still hasn’t explored. He hasn’t really seen any kids his age playing outside to prompt going out, and before he’d always had Moses with him. _His partner in crime,_ Ma had said. _Two cheeky peas in a pod, attached at the flamin’ hip._

They’re not now though, are they? He finds himself slowing to a stop as the thought hits him. No Ma means no Moses. His _brother._ No more fighting over the last chocolate in the share packet or staying up late on weekends to watch horror movies Ryan had smuggled in for them or giving each other chinese burns until Mum busted them.

He wonders if Moses will do all those things with Seb now.

Johnny wipes at his cheeks, surprised to find they’re wet. He plonks himself down on the pavement, feet in the road, scowling at his tear-covered palm. If Moses might go off and be the kind of brother he was to Johnny with Seb, does that mean Ma will keep being Ma even when she’s not _his_ Ma?

He can’t imagine life without her. He doesn’t want to. Who else will bang the ceiling with a broom when it’s storming, telling the sky to keep the noise down? Who else will threaten to knock Cathy Middlestone’s teeth out because she bullied him for half a term?

“Don’t you ever dare do that again!”

He’s surrounded by his Mum instantly, her arms tight around him. He tries to squirm out of her grasp and suddenly he’s crying into her shoulder as she runs a hand through his hair.

“I want Ma,” he confesses into her t-shirt.

“I know,” she tells his hair. “Me too.”

 

* * *

 

She’s pressing a kiss to the inside of Vanessa’s thigh when Vanessa’s head snaps up, panic replacing pleasure.

“Do you smell smoke?” Vanessa asks.

It hits her too late. Charity jumps out of bed, grabbing her robe from its place on the back of the door. When she opens the door she has to cover her mouth and nose with the robe, the smoke is already so thick in the air, a horrible dark grey starting to fill the hallway as it heads up from downstairs.

“Oh my god,” she thinks she hears Vanessa say.

Charity immediately barges into Noah’s room opposite, shaking him awake. She hears Vanessa in the hallway, yelling to wake everyone up, just as Noah comes to. He tries to shove her off of him but she’s already grabbing his coat, telling him to cover his face and not to breathe in the smoke.

Noah follows her back into the hallway, decidedly more awake, and Chas and Paddy are rushing towards the stairs. Chas grips Charity by the arm, fingers digging hard enough to bruise.

“What the hell’s going on?”

Charity ignores her. “Where’s Vanessa?”

“She’s gone to get Johnny and Moses,” Chas replies, looking towards the stairs, covering her mouth with a blanket meant for Grace.

“Right, you go with Paddy and Chas, babe,” Charity says, pushing Noah towards them. “Call 999, yeah?”

“You think?” Chas replies, winding an arm around Noah and pulling him towards the stairs.

He twists, looking back over his shoulder, eyes more panicked and needy since she’s seen when he was a child. “Mum?”

“There’s no time to argue, Noah. Go!”

Her heart’s still jackrabbiting in her chest when she sees Noah disappear down the stairs to safety. _Johnny. Moses. Vanessa._

She heads down the hallway towards the boys’ rooms. The smoke’s getting thicker and she knows they’re quickly running out of time to escape. The smoke’ll be heading up those stairs and they’ll be trapped if they take any longer. Even without seeing any flames, she can tell it’s bigger than she’d expected.

“Ma!”

Moses collides with her, his arms gripping her middle. She fists the back of his pyjama shirt, relief flooding through her.

“Where’s your Mum, kid? Where’s Johnny?”

Moses twists around. “She was right behind me.”

“Right.” Her hand twists tighter in his pyjama shirt for a second. She turns his cheek back towards her. “You run down those stairs, Moz. Don’t look back. Okay? Only come back if you can’t get out.”

He turns out of her hold, looking back down the hallway. “But Mum — ”

She grabs the front of his pyjama shirt, covering his mouth. “ _Go,_ Moses. Only come back if it’s not safe or I swear to god, you’re grounded for the rest of your life.”

Moses hesitates and she pushes him towards the stairs, despite how much of her is telling her to grab hold of him and not let go, to keep him safe herself. He’s only nine, what the hell would he know about escaping a fire? But before she can allow herself to grab ahold of him impulsively he heads towards the smoke and the stairs.

She heads deeper in, eyes scanning, suddenly cursing the fact that Johnny’s room is at the end of the hall.

She finds Vanessa on her knees barely a foot from Johnny’s door. Her hands are trembling as they cover her mouth with the collar of her pyjama shirt, eyes streaming with tears from the sting of the smoke. Charity drops down beside her, resting a hand on her back.

“Babe? What is it?” She asks, watching Vanessa try to stand. She connects the dots in flashes — Vanessa’s trembling hands, the tears. Too reminiscent of the fire she’d been stabbed in, had almost lost her life to. Charity’s chest tightens and it’s not just from the smoke. “Alright, you need to go. _Now._ ”

“Johnny — ”

Charity stands, pulling Vanessa up with her. Her wife practically collapses against her and Charity grunts, holding her weight up.

“Seriously, babe, you’re no use to him right now.”

Vanessa’s sobbing thickly. “Charity —”

“Go, Vanessa, I’ve got him,” she instructs, releasing her wife and watching her stumble, even if it hurts, ”I promise. Just go!”

“No, I need — “

Charity shoves at her, watching Vanessa’s eyes widen.

“I won’t forgive you if you get yourself killed. Go and make sure Moses got out.”

Vanessa stares at her.

“ _Go,_ Vanessa.”

And finally, she does, swallowed by the smoke as she stumbles away, still watching over her shoulder.

Charity waits until Vanessa’s gone before she tries Johnny’s door.

It's locked.


	4. Chapter 4

“Are you seeing someone?”

“Ha bloody ha.”

Charity kicks at a pebble on the ground as she and Debbie walk through the village. Sarah and Indigo are leading them, squabbling over the perfect honeymoon venue. Even as they do, Indigo’s arm is slung over Sarah’s shoulders, the morning spring sun spilling over the two of them. Charity swallows her jealousy, remembering when love had been that easy for her.

That’s all it had been with Vanessa. Easy. She had stepped into love with Vanessa, purposefully and surely, wondering how it’d taken them so long to find each other.

“I mean it,” Debbie insists, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’ve been weird these past three months. You keep taking secret trips according to Moses. _And_ you’re always sneaking off to take phone calls and when you’re not, you’re mooning at whatever text you’ve got. So, who is it?”

Charity swallows. “C’mon, Debs, who would want an ex-con woman in her fifties?”

“It’s good if you are,” Debbie continues. She reaches out and squeezes Charity’s arm. “Moving on is healthy, mum. It’s been long enough. I just want to see you happy. We all do.”

Charity links her arm through her daughter’s, overwhelmed by how grateful she is to have her. Out of all of her children, she’s probably put Debbie through the most. She’s given her more than enough reasons not to forgive her. Yet, that’s exactly what Debbie has done, time and time again, sometimes slowly and sometimes too late, but she does. It’s more than she deserves, really, after everything. She’s not sure how Debbie’s not given up on her completely. God knows Noah has.

“I’m not seeing anyone."  _Just my son._ “And I am happy.”

Debbie shoots her a look. “Mum.”

“Promise,” Charity assures her. “You, the rest of my kids - my grandkids. That’s all I need.”

Debbie’s purses her lips and she knows this lie is less believable. After all, she’s never going to win Mother of the Year.

But Debbie just nods and drops the subject, so she considers it a victory, because telling her truth would hurt more. That the son she’d lost has come back to her, but their meetings are secret. She’s going behind Vanessa’s back once again to do it, providing Johnny with the family she wouldn’t give him, and that she knows it’ll end with her heart being broken once more when Johnny realises all he needs is his Mum and Camila, not a woman who loves him a little too desperately. But for now, it’s enough, because she gets him in her life again. Even if it’s only for a little while. It’s better than not at all.

She doesn’t know how to tell anyone any of this. Doesn’t know how to tell Debbie that she’ll never move on from Vanessa, not really, because Vanessa had been the only person she could never lie to, until the day she did.

Vanessa eclipsed everything. She had known, when Vanessa had left — when she had pushed her away — that that was it. All of the sunlight had followed her out of the door.

No-one had ever stuck around to love her the way Vanessa had before; no-one would again.

 

* * *

 

Vanessa tips her head back against the sofa, smiling at her upside-down. Charity dips to kiss her, even as the two five year olds bustling at her feet let out loud _eeews_ and giggle.

“Alright, you two,” Charity says, twisting Moses’ ear lightly so that he dances away from her, “enough of that.”

Vanessa laughs, rising to make them both their after school snacks. Johnny and Moses sit themselves at the table as she chops up apples and pairs them with grapes in the bowl. It’s the only time they actually behave themselves, especially because they know if they eat this Charity will sneak them some chocolate after dinner.

“Mrs Chen taught us about families with two mummies today,” Moses says, playing with the placemat in front of him. “We told her we have two mummies.”

Charity settles in a chair at the table. She hears Vanessa stop chopping the apples and she doesn’t need to look to know she’s staring at the three of them.

“Is that right?”

“Bram in our class said he has two daddies,” Moses tells her. “Why are they both called daddy if you’re not both mummy?”

Charity turns, watching Vanessa slide into the seat next to her. They both stare at each other for a second.

She hadn’t thought they were ever going to have this discussion, really. She’d been happy enough to have Vanessa and Johnny in her life, regardless of what labels people wanted to put on their family dynamic. In fact, she and Vanessa hadn’t even discussed what they were to each others’ kids, not even after they’d gotten married — they'd simply settled into their roles comfortably, without thought.

She won’t lie and say that her heart doesn’t tumble in her chest when she sees Vanessa fuss over Moses whenever her falls over and scrapes his knee, or lifts him to sleep in their bed whenever he has a nightmare, or even when she bickers with Noah when he sleeps past his alarm for school. There’d been someone, finally, who was sticking with her _and_ her kids, without using them against her.

Charity blinks, turning back to Moses. “Is that what you want? For us both to be your mummy?”

Moses holds up four fingers. “I’ll have two mummies and a daddy! I’ll have the most in my whole class.”

Vanessa reaches over and gently pushes one of his fingers down, so he’s holding up three instead of four. Moses grins gummily at her, one of his front teeth lost now that he’s waiting for the adult one to grow in. He’d had a visit from the tooth fairy — Vanessa, trying to swap the tooth under his pillow for a couple coins without waking him as Charity tried to contain her laughter in the doorway — a few nights ago.

“Johnny?” Vanessa turns to him next. “What do you think?”

Charity feels something that she doesn’t want to label as _nerves_ chill the back of her neck.

“You’re my mummy,” Johnny says to Vanessa, and something inside of Charity’s chest sinks down into her stomach. Then he points at her. “You’re my Ma.”

Charity swallows. “Yeah?”

Johnny nods. “Can I have my apples now?”

Vanessa glances over at her. Mouths _okay?_ And Charity nods, even if there’s tears in her eyes. Vanessa presses a kiss against her temple and Charity closes her eyes, savouring this moment. She doesn’t know what it is she’s done to get so lucky, but god, is she grateful for it.

 

* * *

 

The envelope Lisa hands her reminds her a little of the adoption papers. Charity ignores the twinge that her heart gives at the thought.

It’s only been three weeks since Vanessa had left. Three weeks since Zak and Lisa had offered her a place to stay without questioning her about it. Three weeks since she lost her son and she’s tried to learn how fill the Johnny-shaped hole inside her chest.

Lisa potters about making them tea to go with her breakfast. Charity hasn’t touched even a bite of it, but she’s been doing a good job lately of fooling people into thinking that she’s been eating. Learned how to hide the way her vision goes black when she stands up too quickly or how sometimes the world tilts and breath escapes her when she takes the stairs. The only thing she can’t stop is the tremor in her hands, and no-one’s looked at her too closely since the fire, so that’s gone completely unnoticed.

Her eyes glaze over once she pulls the paper from the envelope, trying to ignore the words _APPLICATION FOR DIVORCE_ , and below it, _VANESSA DINGLE,_ with her signature beside it.

Charity breathes in once. Then out. In. Out.

“Oh, Charity, love.”

Lisa’s beside her suddenly, and Charity keeps focusing on her breathing, because if she doesn’t she might cry, and she’s absolutely sick of it. That’s all she’s done for weeks now and she’s just so tired.

“I don’t understand it,” Lisa tells her, squeezing her shoulder. “The fire was awful, but the two of you were the strongest people we all knew. We all really thought Vanessa was it for you.”

 _Me too,_ she thinks. And then: _In. Out._

“Don’t sign it, love. Talk to her. Make her see sense.”

There’s too many lies, and out of everything, she thinks the only gift Vanessa has given her is keeping what had happened between the two of them. Of allowing Charity to look like the victim.

_In. Out._

“No point,” Charity replies unsteadily, reaching for a pen. Her hands shake harder now and the rings she’s taken to wearing on the chain around her neck feels like they’re scalding her skin. “She’s not worth it.”

Lisa sighs as Charity signs above her name.

And just like that, they're divorced.

 

* * *

 

Camila giggles as the goat knocks its head against her side gently. Charity hovers by her worriedly — if she returns Camila home covered in bumps and bruises, Sofia probably won’t trust her with her daughter again — but the goat simply trots away once Camila’s done petting it.

Johnny’s trying, she knows, to pretend that he isn’t over the moon about the fact she’d brought them both on a day out to the petting zoo. _I’m around animals enough cause of Mum,_ he’d said, but hadn’t protested beyond that when she’d shown him the tickets. He’s putting on the same sullen teenager act Noah used to whenever she and Vanessa would trick him into spending the day with them and the boys, when they had barely been taller than goats, and would act like he wasn’t enjoying spending time with his family.

The goat nudges against Johnny’s side and he scratches the top of its head, smiling a little.

“It’s so cute!” Camila practically yells. She grabs Charity’s hand and tugs. “Can we go see the sheep now?”

Charity looks over at Johnny. “What d’you think?”

He tries to hide his smile at Camila’s enthusiasm and fails. “Alright.”

They exit the pen with the goats, the stench of their manure finally leaving Charity’s nose. Camila drops Charity’s hand to hold Johnny’s, having to double her pace to match just one of his strides with his long and lanky legs. Charity follows behind them, watching them with one another. Johnny listens to Camila as she chatters away at him, even as they make it into the sheep pen. Her attention doesn’t divert from her older brother, watching him with admiration in her eyes, and he helps her grow brave enough to pet the biggest sheep in the pen.

“Your son is wonderful,” a voice says beside her.

Charity turns, finding a middle-aged woman with sandy blonde hair standing beside her. The woman gestures to a teenaged girl sulking outside of the pen, staring at her phone, and then a toddler who’s following one of the sheep around without actually petting it.

“Those are my two. Jessica doesn’t want anything to do with her little brother half the time,” she says with a sigh. “I know there’s an age gap, but…”

Charity crosses her arms over her chest. She’s hardly in the position to be giving parenting advice. The only time she was ever any good at it was when she had Vanessa to lean on. When she had been part of a team.

So, she draws on that.

“I have a few kids. Most of them were good, but one of them acted like he didn’t exist,” Charity confides, nodding at Johnny. “There was a big age gap with them too. But he came round in the end.”

It got easier once Noah was in sixth form and he started to drop the mood swings. Johnny and Moses had been older then, not _quite_ as hyperactive, but still followed him with their eyes whenever he was in the same room as them. It helped that she and Vanessa had still been going strong, that their marriage hadn’t wavered, not once. Noah had finally learned what permanency meant. And then he had thrown himself into being the best big brother the two of them could ever wish for. He’d stay up late playing video games with them and sneak them junk food from the cupboard when he thought she and Vanessa weren’t looking and carry Johnny around on his shoulders at the park, charging after Moses, the boys’ giggles loud in the air.

She finds herself massaging her sternum, like that’ll take the ache for the life she had away.

“How did you convince him?”

Charity shrugs. “My wife and I worked hard with him.” She doesn’t know why she insists on mentioning Vanessa. Why she always insists on self-destruction. “She was good with the everyday stuff, and I just made sure they had fun. It just worked.”

The woman sighs. “I wish I had that.”

 _Me too,_ Charity thinks.

 

* * *

 

“Johnny!” Charity pounds on his door. “C’mon kid, open up!”

The smoke in the hallway is getting so thick that she can barely see. Her eyes are stinging, tears falling freely now, and she holds the robe higher over her face, screwing her eyes shut. She knocks loudly a few more times, feeling the smoke climb down her throat and burn the sides of it.

She’s never hated herself so much in her life. Why the hell had they given the kid a lock? It’d seemed like a good idea at the time, when they were trying to stop Moses from stealing his things — and his eventual tantrum when he would have to give them back — but, she decides, the minute this is over she’s taking that lock off of the door herself. Maybe even the whole door, too, as long as it keeps her kids in her sight at all times.

Finally, the door swings open, and Johnny blinks up at her, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Ma?”

Charity drops the robe from her mouth, covering Johnny’s with it. His eyes go wide.

“No time to talk, babe,” she gets out in a rush, grabbing his wrist, “there’s a fire. So we have to run, okay?”

Johnny grabs at her hand, nodding.

“Whatever you do, you don’t let go of my hand. You hear me? Don’t let go.”  

Johnny nods again, holding the robe tighter to his mouth, and she turns them both and heads into the smoke.

It’s too thick to see anything. She crouches low, covering her mouth with her arm, but her eyes are stinging so much she has to shut them as they move forward. And then there’s heat. So much it’s almost overwhelming, washing over her skin with a scalding feeling. Her eyes spring open again and she can see — but only because the flames have started making their way up the stairs. They lick the walls and the banisters, climbing steadily towards them, and Charity realises with her heart in her mouth that their only escape is gone.

“Johnny, go,” she panics, turning him again, “quick, back to your room.”

He doesn’t say a word, just lets her drag him back there. She slams the door closed and grabs the duvet and pillows from his bed, using them to block the crack under the door, slowing the rate the smoke enters the room. Johnny coughs loudly and Charity rushes over to the window, throwing it open.

Outside, she can see the rest of her family gathered by the pub. She sags with relief seeing Moses standing beside Noah. Safe. Her eyes dart over to Vanessa, who looks up, letting out a cry when she spots Charity watch them.

“Where’s Johnny?” She yells, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Charity!”

Charity moves aside to let Johnny stand at the window. He drops the robe and gasps in lungfuls of the clean air. Charity rubs a hand up and down his back, watching Vanessa sob with relief, followed quickly by panic when she realises neither of them are moving to escape.

“I’m okay!” He calls down to Vanessa. “I promise!”

And then he turns to Charity, whispering quietly: “I’m scared, Ma.”

Charity crouches down to hold him. He trembles against her.

“Don’t be. I’ve got you,” she murmurs into his hair. “Whenever I’m with you, you don’t need to be scared. I promise.”

 

* * *

 

The night after the divorce papers arrive, Charity goes for a long walk to clear her head.

She ends up standing at the ruins of The Woolpack.

The stone had eventually crumbled. There’s still some of the original foundations of the ground floor there, but it’s covered in black scorch marks and the ash of everything the fire had burned away. Looking at it, she can no longer picture the place where she had first kissed Vanessa. The kiss that was intended for a little bit of fun. It had opened the entire world up for her. It had given her a family — helped her discover Ryan, and after that, had helped her become a mother to Johnny too.

Charity squeezes her eyes shut at the thought. _You’re not his mother anymore,_ she tells herself. She tries to cut herself off of the pain, like she had after she thought Ryan had died. She’d thrown herself against the world then. She’d let it hurt her so that she’d feel anything but grief for her son. Now, she has no idea what to do with it. How to make that longing for Johnny go away. Where to put it down.

She wishes she could hate Vanessa for taking him. She wishes could stop Moses from asking about his brother. But she can’t.

She just loves her, even if that’s not what Vanessa wants anymore.

 

* * *

 

The morning of their wedding, Charity gets up before the alarm Chas has set for her. She throws a light jacket on over her pyjamas and texts Vanessa _good morning,_ then sneaks down the stairs quietly.

The weather is brisk, biting at her cheeks, but she can’t stop herself from grinning into the collar of her jacket. She thinks this is the first time she’s ever been _excited_ to be married. Not because it leads to money, or a nice house, or because it helps her prove a point. She’s simply excited for their life together. Everyone will finally see how much she and Vanessa love each other. Because she finally gets to feel happiness, and it’s wonderful and exciting and bubbles in her chest, and she never wants to lose this feeling. Ever.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. She pulls it out to find a message from Vanessa. _Good morning to you too._

Charity smiles. _Come to the window,_ she types back.

She slips the phone back into her pocket, looking up at the windows of Tug Ghyll. Eventually she sees the curtains of Tracy’s bedroom shift and then Vanessa’s face appears, dopey-eyed when she spots Charity. She puts a finger to her lips before she disappears behind the curtains again.

The door to Tug Ghyll opens and Vanessa slips out, closing it quietly behind her. The sun is just beginning to rise and it paints her in fantastic hues of orange and yellow, brightening her smile as she darts down the pathway, meeting Charity at the gate with a kiss. Charity’s sure she’s never loved anyone so much in her entire life.

“It’s bad luck to see each other before the wedding,” Vanessa reminds her as they part.

Charity just shrugs. “Spending the night without you was bad enough.”

“Are you going to be this needy once we’re married?”

“Why? Cold feet?”

“Toasty warm,” Vanessa replies. She threads her fingers through Charity’s hair and tugs her close to kiss her again, deeper this time. “You?”

“On fire,” she responds against Vanessa’s lips. She feels them curl up in a smile. “Wanna go for a walk?”

Vanessa pulls away enough to meet her eyes.

“We’re supposed to be getting married.”

“In seven hours, yeah. Chas has me on a schedule.”

Vanessa laughs brightly. “Tracy does for me too.”

“But I’ve got,” Charity checks the time, “fourty-five minutes until that starts. So what d’you say we go for a walk on your last morning as a Woodfield? We could even sneak in one last quickie if you want, babe.”

Vanessa rolls her eyes but opens the gate, linking her arms with Charity’s.

“You’re so romantic. I deserve a reward for putting up with you.”

“Aren’t _I_ your reward?”

“Always,” Vanessa replies with a smile, letting Charity lead her away from Tug Ghyll.

 

* * *

 

The rings clatter against the ground.

Vanessa’s chest heaves and Charity stares at her, wide-eyed.

For once, she’s speechless.

Her wedding band’s skidded under the bed, her engagement ring rolls along until it bumps against the wall. Charity scoops and picks them up, holding them back out to Vanessa. Her hands tremble.

“Please,” she murmurs, not even really sure what she’s asking for anymore.

Vanessa’s jaw clenches as she turns away. Charity catches a flash of tears in her eyes before her hair obscures her from view.

“I can’t, Charity,” Vanessa says, and takes the last of her things.

 

* * *

 

Charity’s practically holding Johnny out of the window. The fire has reached the room, burning steadily through the door, the smoke so thick there’s no room to breathe. Her arms shake with the strain of holding him up but the adrenaline pumping through her keeps her standing.

She can feel the moment the fire makes it into the room with them. The heat becomes unbearable. She can see it in waves throughout the room, merging with the black smoke. It fills the room with orange and her legs almost give way but she supports herself against the wall, eyes streaming as she watches Johnny take a gulp of the last bit of fresh air he can. She glances down from the window, sees Vanessa doubled over, held up by Chas, and all she can think is _I’m sorry._

The sirens finally reach them then. A fire engine roars around the side with an ambulance and then her family are being pushed away, Vanessa screaming for Johnny as they try to bundle her towards the paramedics. The plumes of smoke become too much for her to see her wife through anymore and then Johnny twists in her arms, burying his face in her neck, and Charity holds him tightly and prays the firefighters will reach them soon.

The fire burns its way through Johnny’s dresser first. The picture frames of them as a family melt to ash and liquid on the floor.

Charity has to back them away from the window into the furthest corner. Her son’s trembling against her fiercely now, sobbing into her neck, and the only thing she knows she can do to reassure him is to repeat _I love you_ into his hair again and again. She has no idea whether he can hear her or not. The t-shirt she’s wrapped around her face muffles her voice and the crackle from the flames is loud. She just hopes he can feel it.

Charity startles when a sudden sound hits them, like the fizz of a champagne bottle after it’s been popped open. A few of the flames are doused near the window and she recognises the foam firefighter’s use, one of their torches cutting through the smoke. She rises on shaky legs and carries Johnny over to them.

The firefighter that takes Johnny reassures her she’ll be back up. Johnny tries to cling to Charity but she pries his fingers off of her, repeating that she loves him once again, and when the firefighter and Johnny disappear from her view she has to back away into the corner again. She sinks down to a crouch, a hacking cough escaping her without her permission, and closes her eyes when she spots the flames grow brighter now the steady spray of the foam is gone. If this is how it ends, this isn’t what she wants to see.

She wants to see her family. Her sons; her daughter. She sobs against the cotton covering her mouth and thinks of Vanessa. Beautiful and bright and always, always by her side. _I love you,_ she repeats in her head, like a mantra. _I love you. I love you. I always will._

“Mrs Dingle!”

Charity’s eyes cut open. The firefighter’s returned at the window, more foam being used to slow the flames approaching her.

Charity stumbles towards the window. The firefighter helps her climb out on unsteady legs, taking the rungs of the ladder one at a time, and the minute her feet hit the floor it all gets too much. She takes a step to find Johnny and make sure he’s okay, but then the world goes sideways and it’s all dark.

 

* * *

 

“Do you wanna come in?”

Johnny fiddles with his seatbelt after he asks. Charity’s fingers curl around the steering wheel.

“What would your mum say?”

Johnny shakes his head. “She’s at work til six on Tuesdays.”

Charity’s eyes flick to the clock. It’s only four.

“Alright.” She releases the grip on the steering wheel. “Sure.”

Johnny’s keys stick in the lock of the front door. He explains that it does this a lot, that his mum keeps meaning to get it fixed, and Charity just nods, unsure of what to say now that the domestic world of her son and ex-wife is opening up to her. Her key to Tug Ghyll would stick in the lock sometimes, too.

The front door opens to a hallway. Johnny places his shoes on a rack that sits beneath a sign that says: _If you don’t mind, please leave your shoes behind._ Charity copies him, placing her boots by a pair of bright yellow wellies that can only be Vanessa’s.

They pass the stairs in the hallway to head through to the kitchen. There’s a large window above the sink looking out to the garden. There’s a set of table and chairs on the patio, a bed of flowers that are beginning to bloom, and a neon orange bike propped up against the fence.

Johnny flicks the kettle on. It’s turquoise and for some reason her heart squeezes just from looking at it.

“How do you take it?” Johnny asks, grabbing two mugs from the cupboard. One’s bright yellow and the other says _World's Best Mum_ in a sickly pink font.

“Strong. No sugar.”

Johnny grins. “Me too. Mum never gets it right though, she always makes it too milky.”

Charity explores the rest of the house as Johnny waits for the kettle to boil. An archway off the side of the kitchen leads her through to the front room with an open plan dining room. She lets her hand trail over one of the counters, studying the array of photos on frames. Most of them feature Johnny as a baby, before she’d ever been a part of his life. There are a few of Vanessa and Tracy, or Vanessa and Rhona, but the majority feature Johnny and the various members of his family. There’s a woman she doesn’t recognise in one. Charity picks it up.

It’s of Vanessa and Johnny, looks like it was taken in the back garden, and Johnny’s wearing a giant badge that says thirteen. His birthday, she guesses. On the other side of the birthday boy is the woman Charity doesn’t recognise. Her arm is draped over his shoulders, fingers resting near Vanessa’s collarbone, and judging by the ring on Vanessa’s finger, she guesses this is her fiancée.

Well. She supposes they’re married by now.

She tries to hate the woman. She glares down at the picture, desperate to find something annoying or wrong about her. She’s taller than Vanessa and Johnny in the photo, hair dark and cropped to her jaw, smile easy for the camera.

But there’s nothing to hate, she thinks, looking at Vanessa. She looks happy.

Maybe that’s all she can hope Vanessa is.

Charity sets the picture back down as Johnny appears at her side. He passes her the _World's Best Mum_ mug and keeps ahold of the yellow one. Charity immediately takes a sip, feeling it warm her chest. They’d taken Camila to an outdoor pool today. Though Charity had intended to sit and watch them, with no intention of getting in a swimming pool in May regardless of whether it was heated or not thank you very much, Johnny had encouraged Camila to splash Charity until it had soaked through her clothes.

“Perfect,” she tells him as he waits for her reaction.

Johnny tries to hide his smile this time. “Wanna see my room?”

“Knock yourself out, kid.”

She follows him up the stairs. There are piles of fresh laundry on each step. She remembers Vanessa always had a habit of doing that, especially given how many of them had lived at The Woolpack. Her theory had been that the owner of each pile would grab it on their way up. Noah’s would sit there for weeks.

Johnny opens the first door on the right. The walls are a deep navy blue with white trimmings, a few posters of the same superhero movies Noah used to love above his bed. He has figurines lined up on his windowsill and two monitors for his computer and a bunch of architectural magazines stacked in a pile at the edge of his desk. She stops and reaches out for a snow globe with the Eiffel Tower in it, shaking it until glitter falls.

“We went last year,” Johnny tells her. “Mum was terrified in the lift up to the top.”

“She never was good with heights.”

Charity sets the snowglobe back down, glancing around his room once more. Everything is in its place. He’d been like that when he was a kid, too. Moses and Noah’s rooms had always looked like a bomb had just gone off, but Johnny would put everything back in the correct drawers. She remembers that she had even caught him trying to tidy up Moses’s room for him once.

“What d’you think?”

“It’s nice,” she admits, resting a hand against the desk. “Different to what you had when you were a kid”

She doesn’t know why she says it. It just escapes her. Johnny watches her carefully and sits down at the end of the bed.

“What was it like?” He asks, looking down at his duvet cover and tracing patterns against it. “My room with you?”

She wonders if he remembers it sometimes. The fire. The two of them, trapped in that room, her promising that she’d always keep him safe. He may have been young, and god knows she can barely remember anything properly before Cain had knocked her up, but it must be in there somewhere. Maybe not their life, but that must stick with him. The destruction.

“It was lilac.”

He frowns. “Lilac?”

“You were going through a phase where it was your favourite colour. It was the only thing you’d dress in. When we redecorated your room, you absolutely insisted. It was only when you saw your br - “ She stops, but Johnny doesn’t seem to have noticed her slip. “When you saw Moses had green, you wanted us to change yours too.”

“But you didn’t?”

Charity laughs. “It’s hard work getting a room lilac and finding furniture to match it.”

“I guess.”

“Do you remember it?”

Johnny looks up. There’s something on his face… he’s a bad liar, like Vanessa, she guesses. He doesn’t want to answer her and she can’t figure out _why._

Why does he insist on spending all this time with her, if he doesn’t remember, or doesn’t want to remember?

Downstairs, the phone rings. Johnny jumps up.

“I’ll get that.”

He disappears round the doorway and down the stairs. She hears him answer with a _hello, aunty Tracy_ and sighs, resting her weight against the desk.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spots that the door to the room opposite is partially open, revealing silver-grey walls. Charity turns out of curiosity. She pads into the hallway, pauses, and hears that Johnny’s still on the phone, telling his aunt about the school trip he’s going on next term. She takes it that she has a moment and pushes the door open.

There’s bright light coming in through the windows, making the room seem lighter. One wall is a dark grey, a throw blanket similar in colour at the end of the white-duvet double bed, and she knows instantly that this is Vanessa’s room.

Charity takes a deep breath.

Each of the throw cushions are different colours. They’re all fluffy. Charity reaches out and takes one, holding it to her chest, the material soft under her fingers.

The floor is cream and without a stain. She thinks about how Vanessa had wanted cream carpet for their room when they’d redecorated. After remembering how many mugs of coffee Charity had accidentally knocked off the bedside cabinet if they’d snuck between the sheets together in the early mornings, they’d settled on wood flooring. Easier to clean.

Her fiancee — wife? — must be tidy, Charity guesses.

On one bedside table there’s a small black and white map of the world in a frame, some of the countries coloured in yellow, including France and Ireland. She guesses it must be placed Vanessa’s travelled. She reaches out and taps her nail above Ireland, remembering how freezing the beach had been, how cold the ice cream, but how she and the boys had loved every second of their first holiday together anyway. Even Noah.

Charity turns, eyes hungrily drinking in the rest of the room. There’s a few framed pictures of Vanessa and Johnny on the walls, similar to the ones downstairs. A potted plant on the windowsill, growing down the edge of the wall. A pair of pyjamas are thrown over a chair by her dressing table, a stack of veterinary journals underneath it.

She sets the cushion back in its place, heading over to the dressing table when she spots something stuck to the mirror. Vanessa’s makeup is haphazardly sprawled across the desk — she’d always leave it if she was running late — and the strawberry lip gloss she’d always worn was among it. But Charity’s fingers reach up and press against the faded photo stuck to the frame of the mirror.

It’s of Vanessa and their boys. She remembers taking the photo. Noah’s sat at a table, blowing out the candles of his eighteenth birthday cake. Ryan is helping Johnny hold two fingers up behind Noah’s head, and Moses has his arms thrown around Vanessa’s middle as they grin for the camera. Vanessa’s hand cups the back of Moses’s head, her body leaning towards him.

Charity feels very much like she’s intruding suddenly.

Just as she turns to leave, she hears a door slam downstairs.

“Mum?”

She freezes in the doorway, by the top of the stairs, and hears Vanessa’s voice float up towards her.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Johnny.”

“I thought you were at work.”

“Well, thankfully, a cat neutering cancelled on us. So I snuck off early.” Charity hears the rustle of plastic bags. “I got us pie for tea. D’you fancy it?”

“Um. Yeah, sure.”

“Great! Oh.” Vanessa pauses. Charity clings to the banisters. “Whose shoes are these? Do you have a friend round?”

Charity hears Johnny scramble to find an excuse. She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, trying to convince her heart to stop beating loudly in her ears, to stop her palms from sweating so much. It doesn’t work.

She takes the stairs downstairs.

Vanessa turns to face her. She’s dressed in a mint green parka, hair pulled back in a ponytail, so beautiful and wonderfully _her_ that it hurts.

Their eyes meet for the first time in six years.

“Charity?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fun fact about this chapter — although I'd always planned this fic to go beyond the Reveal™, in the first draft this felt like a natural conclusion, and I did _almost_ leave it as the ending.

The room spins when Charity opens her eyes.

Oh. No. It’s not spinning. She’s in an ambulance that’s still moving.

“Charity?” A woman appears in her vision with a kind smile. A paramedic, if the uniform is anything to go by. “How are you feeling?”

“Johnny,” she replies, misting the mask over her mouth. She moves it away to speak clearer and her throat aches. It feels like she’s just swallowed an entire pack of cigarettes. “Where is he?”

“Your son’s at the hospital, Mrs Dingle. We’re almost there. You’ve suffered some serious smoke inhalation, so please try to rest.”

The paramedic places the oxygen mask back over her mouth. Charity scowls at her but lets it happen.

The minute they arrive at the hospital, she refuses any treatment. So what if she’s got a sore throat, that’s nothing, and she won’t stop until she knows where her son is. She’s pretty sure she’s felt worse with a hangover. All she needs is a couple painkillers and she’ll be fine, she’s sure.

The paramedic and nurses finally give up on her and tell her where Johnny is. She has to head up two flights to the burn unit, where she finds Chas, Noah and Moses all in the waiting room. Paddy’s just coming around the corner with cups of tea when she arrives.

“Where is she?” Charity asks them hoarsely. Moses runs towards her and flings his arms around her middle. She cards her fingers through his hair. “Where’s Johnny?”

“I’ll show you,” Chas offers.

Moses clings to her when she tries to leave. Charity presses a kiss to his head and promises she’ll be back in a minute and Paddy places a hand on his shoulder, guiding him back to the seats. She starts to head with Chas down the hall but Noah follows after them, calling her name.

She ropes an arm around his shoulders and presses a kiss to his cheek with relief.

“Noah, I promise, I just need to see him then I’ll be back.”

“It’s not that.” Noah’s throat bobs and she realises suddenly there’s tears in his eyes. “Mum, I need to tell you —”

“Babe, please. I really need to see him.”

“But it’s important.”

“So is Johnny.” She presses another kiss to Noah’s cheek, because for once he’s _letting_ her be affectionate, and she’ll take as much of that as she can get. “I’ll be right back.”

Noah doesn’t argue with her again. His shoulders drop and she squeezes him one more time.

Chas stops her once they reach Johnny’s room. The blinds are pulled closed so she can’t even see inside. She goes to reach for the doorknob, but Chas’s fingers wrap around her wrist.

“Charity,” she says quietly, “you need to prepare yourself.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s really bad. _Really_ bad. Vanessa wouldn’t even let any of us in.” Chas pauses. “He's on life support. They’ve got a tube down his throat to help him breathe.”

Charity doubles over, resting her hands on her thighs. “Oh my god.”

“He’s attached to all sorts of wires. He has burns on his face but his throat is blue.”

Chas grips her by the arms, forcing her to stand upright.

“So you prepare yourself, and you go in there, and you be strong for them. Yeah?”

Charity takes a deep breath. She thinks she’s going to be sick.

“Yeah.”

 

* * *

 

The room goes silent.

Vanessa stares at her. Charity stares back.

“What are you doing here?” Vanessa asks in a whisper.

Charity drags her eyes away from her ex-wife. Johnny’s standing to the side looking like his knees are about to start knocking together out of fear.

“I came to see Johnny,” she says, and it’s not exactly a lie. She looks back to Vanessa. “I’m sorry.”

Vanessa inhales sharply. “I’d like you to go, please.”

Charity nods. “Okay. That’s fair.”

Vanessa steps aside so that Charity can reach for her shoes. She can feel both of the Woodfields’ eyes on her and it makes her hands shake as she zips up her boots. When she reaches for the handle, Johnny’s voice cuts through the silence.

“Don’t go.”

Charity turns, hardly daring to believe it. Vanessa’s glaring at their son and if looks could kill, she’s pretty sure that one would. But Johnny stands up straight, holding his shoulders back and his chin high.

“I want you to stay.”

“That’s not up to you,” Vanessa snaps. Her glare turns to Charity and she feels like she’s shrinking under it. “I’ve told you to go.”

Charity curls her hand around the door handle.

“She’s staying,” Johnny retorts. “She’s been helping me.”

Charity steps forward. “Johnny —“

Vanessa's jaw sets. “Helping you? With what?”

“I don’t really think this is the time —”

“I have a half-sister from Kirin." Charity watches Vanessa drop the bags of shopping to the floor. A tin of custard rolls out and bumps against her foot. “Charity’s been taking me to meet her these last three months.”

Vanessa rounds on her with a fire in her eyes.

“You’ve _what?_ ”

 

* * *

 

Without a home to go to, they stay in the B&B. The rest of the family take in Moses and Noah while Charity and Vanessa spend all their time at the hospital.

Charity can't even bring herself to look at her wife. Every time she does the guilt roars loud and violent in her chest. Even once Johnny's off of life support, she feels sick, every inch of her prickly and sharp, pushing Vanessa away. It's for her own good,Charity tells herself. Especially on the nights Vanessa wakes screaming. Charity can't even bring herself to comfort her wife. She doesn't ask, but she knows the nightmares are echoes of the last fire at The Woolpack, from the first time she'd almost lost Johnny.

The night Johnny’s discharged from hospital, Vanessa presses the length of her body against Charity's. Charity curls her legs towards her chest, shrugging the touch away.

"Charity..."

Vanessa's hands fist in the back of her sleep shirt, pulling her to face her. Her kiss is fierce and biting. Charity clutches at her shoulders when Vanessa climbs on top of her and pushes her away.

"Ness..."

Vanessa's eyes glitter with tears. She threads her fingers through Charity's, pushing them beneath the waistband of her pyjamas. The skin is marred with her scars from the stabbing, something Charity had never thought would turn her away. Now her stomach rolls.

"Please," Vanessa sobs against her mouth, forehead pressed to Charity's, "I need..."

Charity twists under Vanessa, rolling them until Vanessa's on her side and off of her body, pulling her hand free.

"Charity," Vanessa whispers, reaching for her again. " _Charity._ "

"I can't," she confesses, prying Vanessa's hands from her waist. "Don't ask me to." 

"Why?" Vanessa asks, so small and quiet and  _hurt_ and Charity knows in that second she'll give nothing to Vanessa but the truth. 

"It was me."

Vanessa's moving closer to her still, twining their legs, a hand reaching for a cheek Charity turns away.

"What was you?" 

"The fire," Charity confesses, and then Vanessa isn't reaching for her anymore. "It was me."

 

* * *

 

 

“So, Mrs Dingle,” Charity murmurs against Vanessa’s ear, pressing her front to Vanessa’s back, “how’re you enjoying married life?”

Vanessa rests her hands over Charity’s on her stomach and Charity leans her chin on her shoulder. Out on the dance floor, a drunk Paddy is trying to teach Johnny and Moses, in their matching page boy outfits, how to do the robot. The five year olds do it better than he does and Noah and Ryan stand to the side in stitches, recording the whole thing to undoubtedly hold over him later.

“Mm, I’ve no complaints so far.”

“Yeah?”

Vanessa turns to press a kiss against her cheek. “Yes, Charity.”

She releases her hold of Vanessa and her wife (god, she gets such a _thrill_ out of thinking of her as that) turns to face her, hand drifting down Charity’s arm until she can thread their fingers together.

“How about a dance?”

“You’ve already had one of those,” she replies, following Vanessa anyway.

“Would you really turn your wife down?”

“Nah,” she lets out when they come to a stop on the dance floor. The music changes from whatever god awful pop song Sarah had requested to a slower song. She recognises it as _Can’t Help Falling In Love with You._ “Not when she’s dressed like that.”

Vanessa grins at her, looping her arms around Charity’s neck. She settles hers on Vanessa’s lower back. They stand further apart than she’d like to avoid stepping on the skirts of each other’s dresses.

Chas finally drags Paddy off of the dance floor and Johnny and Moses trail after him, apparently having found their entertainment for the evening. A few couples rise to the dance floor to join the slow dances. She spots Tracy mouthing something at Vanessa out of the corner of her eye but doesn’t catch what it is. Vanessa just beams back at her sister however, so she guesses they’re all good, especially when Vanessa looks back at her and there’s something like gratitude in her eyes.

“I’m so glad I met you, Charity Dingle.”

She has no name for the emotion that tangles itself around her heart. “Yeah?”

“Absolutely.” She tilts her head. “I’m crazy for you.”

“Back at you, kid.”

“I mean it. You’re it for me.”

They both stop dancing. Charity pulls her closer, until she can feel the warmth of Vanessa’s body.

“I love you,” she tells Vanessa, not tiring of the smile it puts on her face. “I want to spend every single day with you for the rest of my life.”

“Forever?” Vanessa teases.

“And a day,” Charity replies.

 

* * *

 

In the low lamplight, Charity can’t read the expression on Vanessa’s face. She can read the anger coming off of her in waves, though. She stands with her back to Charity, clutching at the windowsill, and Charity forgets what to do with her hands. The guilt has swallowed her whole, claimed her body as its own and made its home inside of her. She’s been carrying it for too long to put it down.

“When?” Vanessa finally asks, breaking the silence. “When did you plan it?”

“Two months ago,” she confesses quietly. “We wouldn’t have made it past that.”

Vanessa’s head drops. “That’s when you stopped touching me.”

She doesn’t know why that’s the detail that Vanessa chooses to pick up on but she doesn’t say a word against it. Because it’s true. She’d found it hard to look in the mirror most of the time. Hated being inside of her own mind, knowing how much she’s reverted, how much she was betraying their family to save them. Anything Vanessa had tried to instigate she’d shrugged off and found excuses for, even if she could tell her wife didn’t buy them. That’s why she hadn’t been surprised, not really, when Vanessa told her about Marnie. Charity had already been trying to push her away. Sleeping with Vanessa the night of the fire had been a moment of madness. Of saying goodbye.

Vanessa turns to face Charity. She’s framed by the window and the night sky.

“Why didn’t you talk to me? About any of it?”

Charity sniffs. “I just… couldn’t.”

“Don’t give me that,” Vanessa snaps. “You’re a strong woman, Charity, and you’re brave enough to face me. So why didn’t you tell me?”

Charity crosses her legs, looking down at the duvet she’s sitting on top of. Vanessa had darted out of the bed the moment the truth had escaped her. Had stopped her from explaining things with a raised hand. Now the burst of adrenaline is gone and Charity’s bravery’s run away with it. She has no idea how to tell her the truth.

“I knew what you’d think of me. I thought I could trick you. I thought I could get away with it, just like every other con I’ve gotten away with, and I thought we’d all be better off for it. The lie was easier than the truth.”

Vanessa blows out a lungful of air, her body sagging.

“You treated me like everyone else you married.”

Charity closes her eyes. “Yes.”

“You undermined me. You _lied_ to me. And then you put our kids in danger.”

Charity’s eyes snap open. She makes her way across the bed, kneeling at the end, reaching for Vanessa. Her wife pushes her hands away with disgust. The rejection smarts like a burn across her chest.

“No-one was supposed to get hurt —”

“Johnny almost _died!_ ”

“I know!” She swallows the bile that rises in her throat. “I can barely _breathe,_ Vanessa, knowing what I did to him. I haven’t slept in a week. Any time he looks at me, I just — I just remember what I did and I can’t hold it in anymore. I can’t cope with it.”

“You’ll get no sympathy from me.”

“I don’t expect it. I just need you to understand —”

“What is there to understand, Charity?” Vanessa thunders. “You hired an arsonist to burn down our house. How the hell do you expect me to forgive you for that? How the hell am I supposed to stand even being in the same room as you anymore?”  

“Vanessa, please — “ She climbs off of the bed, gripping Vanessa’s hands even as Vanessa tries to shove her off. “Babe, please. Just listen. Please just listen to me.”

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, Charity,” she growls.

“Look, no-one was supposed to get hurt. Yeah? It was just gonna be an insurance job. It was only supposed to be the _cellar._ We’d get a bit of money, enough to cover the debt, and we’d be back to normal. But something went wrong, I — I dunno what.”

“I’ll tell you what went wrong, Charity,” Vanessa says sourly, yanking her hands from Charity’s grip, “it’s me thinking you could ever _possibly_ change. This whole time you’ve been the same woman you always were.”

“ _Please,_ babe. We would’ve been safe, I swear to you. But Noah took the batteries from a couple of the fire alarms for Johnny and Moses’s toys, right, and that’s why we had no warning —”

“So you’re saying it’s his fault, then?”

“No. Never.”

Vanessa side-steps her, growing further and further away from her. “God, I feel sick.”

“Ness —“

“Stop, Charity! Just stop.”

She does. Vanessa puts a hand to her forehead, swaying on the spot. Charity can feel the way Vanessa's love unravels all at once. 

“Did Chas know? About any of it?”

“No.”

“Not even the debt?”

“Do you think I’d have resorted to arson if she did?”

“I don’t understand, Charity,” Vanessa says, dropping her hand and meeting her eyes. “Why didn’t you just talk to her, at least? Surely she would’ve seen it on the finances too. God, even _I_ could tell the punters at the pub were running a little thin.”

Charity’s vision blurs with tears. “Forged all the numbers, didn’t I?”

“You thought that was your only option? Fraud and arson?”

“What the hell was I supposed to do?” Charity yells. “We had a kid at uni, two more constantly going on school trips, we barely had any money and it was haemorrhaging by the second. Every themed night Chas and I hosted failed to bring in any money; every event hosted; every drink bought. People moved away from the village and took business with it. I was failing you.”

“Losing money doesn’t mean you failed me. Or our family.” Vanessa sniffs, tears falling freely down her cheeks. “But thinking that’s what matters did. And I really thought you’d learned better than that with me. ”

Charity takes a step towards her. Vanessa takes a step back.

“He almost died, Charity,” Vanessa whispers. “He was on life support for three days because of you.”

She can still see it. His neck blue from the lack of oxygen. His body so _small_ in that hospital room. His crackly, broken  _hi Ma_ when he'd finally woken up.

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you really understand what that means? Because I took you for a lot of things, Charity, but a bad mother was never one of them.”

Charity slumps down on the end of the bed. “I love him.”

“That’s not enough,” Vanessa replies. Her hand rests against her own sternum as she swallows harshly. “You should want him safe. All of the time. You should want to protect him. You shouldn’t want even a hair on his body to be harmed and you should want to do anything to prevent that from happening. You should want to give your life to protect his.”

“I do.”

“I can’t believe that anymore,” Vanessa says softly.

Charity’s breath hitches. “I was so scared of losing you.”

“Congratulations, Charity. You made your fear come true.”

 

* * *

 

Charity makes three mugs of tea. One in the yellow mug, another in the _WORLD’S BEST MUM_ mug, and one she’d found with a bunch of cats and dogs on it.

Vanessa and Johnny sit in stony silence as she enters the front room on opposite sofas. Charity had ushered them through and told them to talk about it properly. God knows she’s learned from her mistakes of refusing to talk. She passes Johnny his mug first. Vanessa doesn’t look her in the eye when she hands hers over, but when she realises how milky it is, she spots a small smile.

Charity grabs a chair from the dining room, settling it in the space between them. How strange, for her to be the mediator.

“Johnny messaged me on facebook three months ago.” 

“John,” he corrects.

“John,” she repeats. She taps a finger against her mug. Vanessa watches her hands. “I didn’t know what to expect when he asked to meet. I know I didn’t expect him to ask about Kirin.” 

Vanessa’s throat bobs. She looks to Johnny. “You really want to know him?” 

Charity gnaws at her lower lip as she waits for Johnny to respond. 

“I did. I wanted to know about him, at least. And then I —“ He stops, scowling into his brew. “It doesn’t matter. But I want to know Camila now.”

“That’s her name?”

“She’s six.”

Vanessa nods. “It’s a pretty name. Camila.” 

They lapse back into silence. Charity takes a steadying sip of her brew. It feels like every single one of her nerve endings is on fire. Every single one of her senses is focused on the fact she’s in the same room as Vanessa. Every part of her honed in on her, cataloguing every small detail — from the light floral smell of her perfume to the little bit of gold that shines in her eyeshadow.

She thought she’d never see her again. 

“I’ve been taking him to meet her. Camila lives with her mum in Lancaster. She’s a good mum and she’s been more than open with Johnny about everything,” Charity confesses, watching Vanessa’s jaw tense. She remembers how that patch of skin tasted. “I’ve been trying to get him to tell you for weeks.” 

“You didn’t tell me yourself,” Vanessa accuses. 

“How could I? I have no way to contact you. Besides,” she pauses and looks over to Johnny, “there’s no way I could betray him.” 

Johnny smiles at her. “Thanks, Charity.”

“Don’t mention it, kid.”

Vanessa sighs, setting her brew on the ground and rising to stand. She paces back and forth as Charity and Johnny watch, their eyes moving like watching a tennis match. 

Vanessa scowls as she mulls things over. Her ponytail bounces with each step. Charity thinks she’s the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen. Vanessa’s brightness had faded in her memory as the years had passed. Now, she can’t take her eyes off of her, desperate to drink every part of her in. She memorises the pattern of the wool jumper and the shape of her hips in her jeans. She wonders about the scar on her stomach and whether she’d ever got a tattoo to cover it like she’d always said she wanted to. She even decides to remember the engagement ring on her left hand. All of this extra Vanessa is a gift.

“So you’ve just been taking him to see her?” Vanessa asks eventually. “What do you get out of it?” 

Charity senses Johnny’s eyes on her but she meets Vanessa’s. They’re the right shade of blue. Not cold as ice like Bails’ had been. They remind her of the sky and her throat thickens, wondering how she could’ve possibly forgotten how they were her favourite shade.

“I get to see him.”

Vanessa stops pacing. “Charity…”

“I know.” She looks down at her mug. “Not my place anymore.” 

“No, it’s not,” Vanessa murmurs.

“Mum, I like Charity. I like her taking me to see Camila.”

“I can take you instead.”

Charity’s head snaps up. Johnny’s eyes are as wide as hers at Vanessa’s offer. Vanessa sits beside Johnny, resting a hand on his leg, giving him a small smile.

“I wish you’d told me about her. I’m angry at you, Johnny. Not because you went to see her, but because you went without me, and because you thought I wouldn’t support you. I support you no matter what. You’re my son. And you have every right to know about your family.” Vanessa pauses, eyes flicking over to Charity. “And I’m glad you didn’t do it on your own.”

Johnny ropes his arms around his mum, resting his cheek on her shoulder. She rubs a hand up and down his arm, eyes still on Charity. 

Vanessa mouths  _ thank you,  _ and it’s the opposite of what she’d expected. Charity inhales sharply and nods, finishing the last of her mug. She sets it on the floor beside Vanessa’s, the handles knocking together.

Charity does a survey of the room, trying not to think about how, once, this was her life.

“I’d best be off.”

Johnny rises as she does, flinging his arms around her. He’s taller, and she smiles into his shoulder, even as her chest aches with goodbye.

“Thank you,” he says into her ear. “And you know what? Mum was wrong. You’re not cruel.”

“I am cruel,” she counters. “But not with you.”

He draws away. There’s so much of Vanessa in his smile that it hurts. 

She drinks in this memory of him, smiling at her like this. This is how she wants to remember her son. 

“I’ll see you out,” Vanessa offers.

Charity nods, following Vanessa to the front door. She pauses in the archway to look back at Johnny. He salutes her. She rolls her eyes and waves.

He waves back.

Vanessa’s waiting for her in the hallway. Charity grabs the shoes she’d taken off to make tea, slipping the boots back on. 

Vanessa watches her carefully, so  _ close  _ to her that Charity almost forgets it’s not her place to kiss her anymore. She remembers when that’d been something she could do every day. When she’d get off a shift and Vanessa was waiting in bed, all warm body and soft lips. She remembers after they’d gotten married, they wouldn’t go anywhere together without holding hands, a display of affection she hadn’t thought much of before. Yet so much of her had always wanted to be connected to Vanessa. She’d wanted to show their love off to the world.  _ Look what I have,  _ she’d wanted to shout.  _ Look how lucky I am. _

Vanessa waits until Charity’s zipped up her boots to speak. 

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to see him again.”

Charity pulls her coat on. “I thought you’d say that.” She stops. "I’m sorry for going behind your back with Johnny."

Vanessa crosses her arms over her chest. "You had no right," she says, the words dripping like molten over Charity. "I thought I made that clear when I left."

She has to tell herself not to cry. Instead she nods, her heart in her throat, and gives Vanessa a truth.

"I’m sorry for all of it. Everything I did to you and Johnny. I'm just so... sorry.”

Vanessa’s eyes widen and there's a moment of stasis. A moment when the look she gives is so soft and tender Charity could almost fool herself that it's still love. Vanessa reaches out to squeeze Charity’s hand and everything else tunes out to white noise.

“Thank you.” She almost smiles. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.”

“Sorry it took me so long to say it.” 

Vanessa’s fingers linger on the back of her palm as she releases her. Charity’s own fingers itch to reach out and twine them together, but she has no right to her anymore, and it’s no-one’s fault but her own. 

And that’s okay.

Vanessa opens the front door for her. Outside, the sky is grey, a light drizzle of rain falling. Charity takes one step out and pauses on the porch, turning with one last question.

“Are you happy with her?”

“What?”

Charity gestures to the ring on Vanessa’s left hand.

“Your fiancée.”

Vanessa looks down at the ring with a frown. She touches it with her fingers lightly before she meets Charity’s eyes again.

“Oh. Yes. I am.”

“Good,” Charity says, and finds she means it. “You deserve to be happy.”

“Thank you,” Vanessa murmurs.

Charity takes a step back into the drizzling rain. She keeps her eyes on the woman in front of her, suddenly thankful that she’s been given a chance for closure. Thankful that she'd ever been given the chance to know someone like Vanessa Woodfield at all.

“Goodbye, Vanessa.”

Vanessa tilts her head, eyebrows pulling together like she’s trying not to cry.

“Goodbye, Charity.”

She takes another step back.

“Bye,” she repeats, softer this time.

“Bye,” Vanessa whispers, and closes the door.

 


	6. Chapter 6

_ Why don’t you visit anymore? _

It’s the first text she receives from Johnny, after Vanessa tells her to stay away. She doesn’t answer it.

_ Camila asked about you today. _

She’s in the middle of a shift when that one lights up her phone. Charity pushes it back into her pocket and deals with a customer complaint.

_ I didn’t think you’d leave. _

That one arrives in the middle of the night.

Every night, she dreams about Vanessa cutting the crusts off of Moses’s sandwiches.

 

* * *

 

She decides to stay busy by throwing herself into wedding planning with Sarah. It’s only three months away, after all. It’s not every day her first grandchild gets married. If Debbie suspects anything about the motivation behind her enthusiasm, she doesn’t say a thing, and she’s grateful for it. She doesn’t know how to explain the pain of losing her son for a second time.

There’s a knock on the door as she settles in front of the TV with a glass of wine one evening. Zak and Lisa are both out and Moses is at a sleepover. Charity frowns. She’s sure they would’ve warned her if anyone was coming over.

But when she opens the door, it isn’t Zak or Lisa or Moses or even Sam.

It’s Johnny.

“John.” She steps back in shock. “What are you doing here?” 

“Can I come in?”

Charity steps aside, closing the door behind Johnny. He’s so tall, so broad, that he makes Wishing Well look even smaller than it already is. She’s painfully aware of the mess that spills over every surface, a constant amount of clutter that just seems to exist no matter how many times Lisa tidies everything away, even if it’s just four of them living here together.

Johnny drops a backpack onto the sofa. “This place is nice.”

Charity snorts. “It’s a dump.”

“No. It’s sort of charming.”

“Code word for tip,” she replies. She nudges his backpack with her leg. “What’s this?” 

“I’ve run away.”

Charity stumbles back. “You’ve  _ what?” _

“I’ve run away. Mum takes me to see Camila and she’s  _ really  _ good with her. But you won't answer my texts or my calls and I _know_ it's because of her. And I — I want to see you.”

“Oh, kid.” Charity rubs at her temples. “Your mum’s really gonna kill me this time.” 

“I don’t understand why she’s so against it. I’m not asking  _ her _ to talk to you.  _ I  _ want to see you and just… hang out with you.”

“There’s too much history for that to happen.” 

“I don’t think that’s true.”

Johnny meets her gaze steadily. Charity swallows, wondering how it’s possible that he doesn’t remember that she’s the reason he spent three days on life support. She remembers how fragile he’d looked. The pain he’d gone through because of  _ her.  _ How is it that no part of him realises what she’d done, how is it possible that there’s no instinct to run from her?

“Johnny…”

“It’s John.”

“Sorry. Still can’t get used to it.”

He slumps down onto the sofa. 

“Well, if I stay here you’ll get used to it, won’t you?”

She sits beside him. “Have you told your Mum where you are?”

“No. That’s the whole point of running away.”

“Jesus, kid. You really want to get me in trouble.”

“Why does she hate you so much?” 

She knows he doesn’t mean for the words to hurt. It’s the only thing he’s seen of her and Vanessa, after all. But the pain still ripples through her.  _ Hate.  _ That’s exactly what Vanessa had felt towards her after she’d found out the truth about the fire. She’s not allowed herself to put that word to it, though. Hadn’t wanted to face it like that, even after all these years. She'd rather remember the happy than the hurt.

Johnny hangs his head when she stays silent. “Sorry, I didn’t mean —”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s true.”

“But I don’t get it. You two were together. You lived together. You were  _ married.  _ And suddenly that doesn’t matter anymore? Suddenly I don’t get to see you?”

Charity eyes him suspiciously. “How much of that do you remember?”

“Not much,” he says quickly, scratching at a spot behind his ear. “But I ask questions.”

“Yeah.” Charity huffs a laugh. “I know.” 

Johnny.leans back against the sofa, running his hands over his face. She sighs and holds a hand out expectantly.

“Phone.”

“What?”

“Give me your phone. I’ll call your Mum and let her know you’re safe. She’ll be out of her mind.”

“I don’t know why you care,” he responds. “You don’t owe it to be nice to her. She’s not nice to you.”

“It’s not about owing her. Now c’mon. Phone. Now.” 

Johnny rolls his eyes but acquiesces, scrolling through it to get her number up. Charity hands him the TV remote and heads upstairs as she presses the  _ call  _ button. This is a conversation best had in private.

Vanessa answers almost immediately. Charity’s barely made it into her room and shut the door behind her before her voice comes through, rushed and panicked.

“Johnny? Where are you?”

“It’s me.”

“Charity?” Her voice rises in tone. “What are you doing with his phone?”

“Johnny’s here. At Wishing Well.” 

“What’s he doing  _ there? _ ”

“Told me he’s run away. Not very good at it, if you ask me, considering who he’s run to.”

She hears Vanessa sigh. “I’m coming to get him.”

“No,” she gets out quickly. She presses her palm flat against the door. “Let him cool off, otherwise he’ll never come with you. Give it a day.”

Vanessa goes silent. Charity’s heart jackrabbits. She knows it’s not her place to tell Vanessa what to do anymore, especially not when it comes to parenting. Especially not when it comes to Johnny. But she’s missed him and she’s desperate for just a second more of his company.

“Look, why don’t you come up tomorrow morning? We’ll all talk then.”

“I don’t know, Charity.”

“He’ll be fine. I promise.”

“You promised that before,” Vanessa whispers.

Charity closes her eyes. “It’s different this time. I’d never hurt him again. Accident or not. Please, Ness.”

The nickname escapes her without her permission. She winces.

Vanessa makes a frustrated sound. “Fine. I’ll be there at nine tomorrow.” 

Charity nods, even if she can’t see her. “Nine.”

 

* * *

 

 

She and Johnny spend the rest of the evening watching horror movies. They’re his favourite, it turns out, and she’s hardly going to deny him. He raids the fridge and eats his body weight in carbohydrates — exactly like Moses does — while she drinks her wine. The conversation is easy, even without the excuse of Camila, and at one point he pelts her with chips straight out of the oven because of a teasing comment she’d made. 

It’s everything she’d hoped they would have when he was younger. Back before everything had fallen apart. It’s temporary, but it’s theirs, and when she shows him to Moses’s room to sleep she thinks it’s enough. 

 

* * *

 

That night, Charity dreams about how it’d been right before Vanessa left for Preston.

After Charity had told her the truth, Vanessa had booked herself a separate room at the B&B. Eric had undoubtedly raised his eyebrows at the request and passed the gossip along. By the evening she had a bunch of texts from Chas, asking if something was wrong with her and Vanessa .

The night before Vanessa leaves, Charity had slipped into the room Vanessa stayed in. They hadn’t spoken in two weeks. It was almost three in the morning but Vanessa was wide awake, the TV on but muted. She had simply stared up at the ceiling. 

Charity settled on top of the sheets, carefully not touching her for fear Vanessa would push her away.

“I love you,” she whispered. “Vanessa…” 

Vanessa closed her eyes. 

“I know I never deserved you,” Charity continued, “and it made me desperate. But don’t forget that I love you. I did all of this because I do.”

She’d wanted Vanessa to ask her to stay. At the time, she'd had no idea how far away Vanessa was going to move away in the morning. 

But Vanessa hadn’t asked, and Charity had crawled back to her own room to lick her wounds.

She wakes from the dream with tears on her cheeks.

 

* * *

 

Zak and Lisa are downstairs the next morning. There’s still two hours before Vanessa’s due to arrive, and Johnny’s still sound asleep upstairs, but she realises she owes a lot of the people in her life the truth. She’s trying to make amends too late to really earn forgiveness, but that doesn’t mean she’s not going to do it.

“Johnny?  _ Your  _ Johnny?” Lisa asks, after she finishes explaining.

“Yeah.” Charity feels like she’s floating at the words. “My Johnny.”

“Well, we’ll make sure to keep out of your way, love. Won’t we, Zak?”

“What? Oh, uh, right. We’ll stay out of your way.”

True to their word, Zak and Lisa leave before Johnny’s even woke up for breakfast. Charity burns her thumb making him a bacon butty but it’s worth it when he slopes down the stairs and heads straight for it, practically inhaling the thing.

Vanessa arrives at exactly nine. Johnny’s stretched out on the sofa, flicking through the channels, while she’s pacing near the window. She spots Vanessa coming up the path and ducks out of her sight, shifting her weight from foot to foot until the knock comes.

Vanessa barges straight into the cottage. Charity’s barely closed the door behind her before Vanessa has Johnny wrapped up in her arms, gripping him fiercely.

“What were you  _ thinking? _ ” 

Johnny squirms out of her grasp. “I was  _ thinking  _ that I’m allowed to see who I want.”

“Johnny, we’ve been over this —”

“No, _you’ve_ been over this, without giving me any answers. I’m not allowed to have an opinion.”

“Not about Charity,” Vanessa replies softly. Their eyes meet and Vanessa winces. “Johnny —”

“I’m not coming home until you tell me the truth.” 

Charity steps forward. “The truth?” 

“Yeah. I want to know why I can’t stay here or talk to you without her freaking out.”

Her gaze meets Vanessa’s again. The expression on her face is impossible to read. Vanessa had always been such an open book with her. The years have changed her, made her harder. Or maybe that had all been Charity.

“It’s not my place to know you, kid.” 

Johnny doesn’t swallow the lie quite as easily as she’d hoped. His eye twitches and then his jaw tenses just like Vanessa’s. He reaches for his phone in his pocket, scrolling through it furiously as she and Vanessa watch him silently. He takes a deep breath and stops before he passes the phone to her.

“If it’s not your place, why are you my mother?”

She hears Vanessa gasp and Charity’s eyes focus on the screen. It’s Johnny’s amended birth certificate.  _ JOHNNY DINGLE,  _ it reads.  _ MOTHER: VANESSA DINGLE.  _

And then, below it,  _ MOTHER: CHARITY DINGLE. _

“Where did you find it?” She hears Vanessa ask.

Johnny’s face is bright red with anger when Charity looks up from the phone, speechless. 

“I was looking through your things to find out about Kirin. And then I found that. I realised I wasn’t a Woodfield. Or even a Kotecha.” He looks up at Charity. “I’m a Dingle.”

Charity looks to Vanessa at a loss for words. She’s crying silently. The tears glisten under the light but she doesn’t wipe them away. Charity passes Johnny his phone back wordlessly.

“You’re never this quiet. Either of you.”

Vanessa sniffs. “Am I not enough?” 

Charity steps forward, reassurances on the tip of her tongue six years too late. Johnny turns and leans into his Mum, despite his anger. Charity stops and watches them, their easy dynamic, the way they operate with each other. Jealousy stabs at her. Parenting had always been easy for Vanessa. 

“I love you,” he tells Vanessa, glancing to Charity. “But I remember the life we had before Preston. Not a lot of it. But I remember having a brother. And I had my Ma. And I loved her. And she loved me.”

The hot burn of tears hits her eyes. “Still do, kid.”

Vanessa's eyebrows knot together at Charity's words. She waits for Vanessa to refute it, to claim she never cared for Johnny, to throw it all back in her face, but she doesn't. 

“I don’t understand why we’re not all together anymore.” Johnny's expression screws up. “I’ve been angry for so long, but I didn’t know why. Not until I found the birth certificate and it jogged my memory.”

“Johnny, things aren’t always simple…”

“Tell him,” Charity says quietly. “It’s okay.” 

Johnny looks between them. “Tell me what?” 

Vanessa holds her gaze. “Does anyone but me know?”

“No.” 

Vanessa nods. 

“Okay.”

Charity sits beside her, and together, they tell him about the fire.

 

* * *

 

Moses heads out of his friend’s house with a bounce to his step. Charity watches him from the car, guessing he’s had too little sleep and too much sugar, as seems to be custom with sleepovers nowadays. He whistles as he opens the passenger door, tossing his backpack onto the back seats and jumping into the car.

“Three hours?” 

Moses grins. “Two and a half.”

It’s how they always greet each other after Moses has had a sleepover. Charity guesses how much sleep he’s had and he tells her the truth. At least, she thinks, one of her kids doesn’t lie to her.

When they get back to Wishing Well, Moses heads straight up to his room, most likely to go online and play games with the friend whose house he just left. Instead of too many swear words and yelling when his character dies, there’s silence from his room, so Charity finds herself standing in his doorway out of curiosity. He’s staring at one of the figurines on his desk.

“You okay?”

He frowns. “Was someone here?”

“Why?”

“It’s moved,” he says, poking the figurine. “It’s always been  _ behind  _ Wonder Woman. Not in front.”

She watches him swap the figurines around. She pushes off of the doorway and makes her way into the room, sitting at the edge of his bed. 

“Actually, someone  _ did  _ stay here last night.”

“Was it Jack?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

She fiddles with the zip on her jacket, hands clammy.

“Do you remember Vanessa?” 

For the first time since he learned to string a sentence together, Moses goes quiet. He settles next to her on the bed.

“Kind of. I remember Johnny.”

She smiles to herself. “You do?”

“Yeah. He was a fun brother. Quiet, but fun.”

His words warm her chest. Johnny and Moses had always been attached at the hip, even as they’d grown older and their different personalities had become more apparent. She’d lost count of the amount of times she and Vanessa had been called in to see their teachers because they’d worried the boys weren’t making friends because they already had each other. Vanessa had worried about it too, telling them that they needed to learn to play with the others in their class. Charity had known they were fine as they were.

“He stayed here last night. Ran away from home,” she says with a laugh. “Don’t get any ideas.”

Moses eyes her curiously. “Why’d he come here?”

“I’m his mother.” She watches Moses’ expression for some semblance of shock. There is none. “I adopted him after me and Vanessa got married.” 

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Well, you were always Ma. Vanessa was Mum. It makes sense.”

“You remember that?”

Disbelief paints through her voice. Moses rolls his eyes.

“It’s hard to forget how many parents I have. I have four to keep track of.” 

“Why didn’t you ever ask about it?”

“I did. Noah and Ryan told me about stuff I didn’t remember. They have photos of all of us, too. Birthday cards Vanessa sent.” Moses frowns. “But you just… I didn’t think you wanted to talk about it. I didn’t know if I was allowed.” 

“Moz, you’re always allowed to talk to me. About anything.” 

Her son smiles at her. There’s nothing of his father in him. Everything about him her mirror image, just like Noah. She finds herself thinking about Johnny. How he doesn’t look anything like Vanessa, but acts just like her, until he’s angry. Then he’s all Charity, even if she hasn’t been in his life for so long. She finds herself looking for Vanessa in Moses suddenly, almost desperate for it.

“Is he gonna visit again?” Moses asks.

“Maybe. That’s up to Vanessa.” 

“Okay. I hope I’m here if he does.” 

“Me too, kid.” 

 

* * *

 

Word gets out among the Dingle clan about Johnny and Vanessa’s sudden reappearance in her life. Chas doesn’t ask her about it when she heads into work the next day, but she can sense her cousins eyes on her through her shift. Marlon is his usual blundering self in the kitchen and asks her if he should cook something for Johnny. She heads home and gets a call from Debbie, who quizzes her on how long Johnny’s been in contact with her, and if she’s back with Vanessa again.

Charity quickly nips that one in the bud. Debbie’s tone is a little less enthusiastic after that.

 

* * *

 

She’s in the middle of food shopping, piling her trolley with junk food and wine to console herself, when her phone vibrates in her pocket. She pulls it out and finds a message from Johnny.

_ I forgive you,  _ it says, and just like that, it’s like her lungs are clear of smoke for the first time in in six years.

 

* * *

 

Charity spots Vanessa’s yellow coat from a mile off. 

Vanessa and Johnny approach them slowly. She notices a few of the village residents do a double take at Vanessa first, and then Johnny, connecting the dots. She gives the few that she recognises polite smiles, but Johnny ignores them all, following his Mum but eyes trained on the field. It’s Emmerdale versus Hotten and Moses is playing in goal. He’s already managed to save three shots from the opposition.

“Hey.”

Vanessa smiles at her. It’s like the world grows warmer as she does.

“Hey.”

A rumble travels through the crowd of parents supporting Hotten. Charity drags her eyes over to the pitch. One of the strikers of Hotten has the ball, running straight at Moses with it. Moses rubs his hands together and crouches, standing on the balls of his feet as he anticipates the next shot. The striker aims and shoots, hard enough that her own foot aches with sympathy.

Moses leaps and saves it again.

“Wow,” Johnny remarks. “He’s really good.”

“He is,” Charity feels herself boast. “He swims, too. And sometimes does rugby.”

“Really?”

Charity glances at Vanessa, who’s watching Moses out on the pitch now.

“Yeah, well, he’s full of energy. No idea where he gets it. I’m tired enough just driving him to all his clubs.” 

Vanessa and Johnny stand beside her, watching the remainder of the match. Emmerdale score two shots before Hotten manage to score one. Moses punches the field after he misses the ball and his coach yells at him from the sidelines. But he doesn’t allow any goals to pass him after that, even though she’s pretty sure he’s broken his ribs from the way he lands to save one of the shots. Emmerdale score another three goals easily and the referee finally calls the end of the match at 5-1. The Hotten team sulk off of the pitch and Moses bounds towards them, grinning and eating an orange.

“Hi!” He greets them a little breathlessly. He’s covered in grass stains and his sweaty hair sticks to his forehead. “I remember you.”

Johnny gives him a crooked smile. “Yeah. I remember you too.” 

“Ma said you’re more into hockey than football, but we usually have a little friendly kick around after we’ve won. Fancy it?” 

“Oh.” Johnny glances from Moses to Charity and then to Vanessa. “I’m not really any good —”

“Doesn’t matter if you’re good. Just matters if you have fun.”

And  _ there  _ it is. That mark Vanessa’s left on Moses. She’s the only one he could’ve possibly inherited his kindness from. 

Johnny lets Moses lead him onto the pitch. The other members of the team accept him easily, passing him the ball and roaring with laughter when he misses a kick. It’s not unkind, their laughter, especially because Moses shoots them all a protective-brother glare. Butterflies fill her chest as she watches them. It’s almost like no time has passed at all.

“Thank you,” she tells Vanessa, “for giving me a second chance with him.”

Vanessa’s lips become a thin line. “I still don’t know if I trust you, Charity. But he wants to know you. I can’t say no to that.”

“Right.” 

Charity scuffs her shoe in the grass. She hooks a thumb over her shoulder.

“They usually do this for a while. Fancy a pint?”

Something travels over Vanessa’s expression but she doesn’t have a name for it.

“Sure.”

Charity leaves Moses’s things on the side of the pitch for him. He knows where to meet her. She resists the urge to take Vanessa’s hand as she guides her from the pitch. 

They walk in silence. Charity’s not sure what there is to say. This is the first time they’ve actually been properly alone since they said goodbye to each other six years ago. It doesn’t help that people like Rodney walk down the street and stare at them bug-eyed. She gives him a glare so heated she’s sure she sees the collar of his shirt start to singe.

“The Sunflower,” Vanessa reads when they approach the pub. The sign sways in the summer breeze. “That’s a pretty name.” 

“Yeah. Debs has good taste.”

“Debbie?”

“She owns the place.”

Vanessa frowns. “Not you?”

“Oh. No. Debbie rebuilt this place from the ground. Me and Chas have a restaurant in Hotten.” 

_ That  _ makes Vanessa’s eyebrows climb her forehead. 

“You? Own a restaurant?” 

“I’m very chic.”

Vanessa wrinkles her nose. “Anyone ever thrown a Battenburg at you?” 

The laughter comes easily, even if it should hurt.

Victoria’s working behind the bar in her chef getup. She’s rushed off her feet now that the match is over, punters from the village and Hotten alike all in for a Sunday afternoon pint. Charity touches Vanessa’s elbow to stop her.

“You grab a seat. I’m gonna help her.” 

Vanessa heads over to a booth. A lot of the basic interior is similar to how The Woolpack had been, except it’s all sleeker, more modern. A lot of black and white furniture and chips served in little buckets instead of on the side of the plate. It works, though, and it’s certainly drawn in business — it helps that it has such a sordid past, even with the rebranding. People flood in to see what had become of The Woolpack following the fire. They bring their money with them.

Charity heads around to the other side of the bar. Victoria looks so relieved she thinks the woman might actually kiss her for a second. Together, they help serve the customers and clear the bar, and Charity’s taken back to a past life. She used to try and dodge her shifts as much as possible, but once Vanessa and Johnny moved in, she did that less. They’d always come through to see her, especially Vanessa, and keep her company. She’s almost surprised when she turns to the hallway leading to the back rooms and Vanessa isn’t standing there with a smile on her face that begs to be kissed.

Once the bar is cleared, Charity pours herself a pint, and one for Vanessa.

“Vanessa! Hi.”

Charity sets the two drinks on the bar, finding the woman that’s been running around her mind has walked up to the bar. Vanessa gives Victoria a smile, but it’s tight, something stressed around the edges of her eyes. Charity narrows her own, trying to figure this puzzle out.

“Hi, Victoria.”

“How are you?” 

“I’m…” She glances over at Charity. Her shoulders drop. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“This!” Vanessa gestures between the two them. Victoria awkwardly takes a step back from the conversation. “I can’t be friends with you, Charity. I can’t pretend like nothing’s happened.”

“I’m not asking you to.” 

“Aren’t you?” 

“I don’t want to pretend like nothing’s happened.”  _ Like we didn’t happen.  _ “But we’re going to be in each other’s lives. The least we can do is get along, yeah?”

“So, what? I have to sit here every Sunday and act like it’s normal that we get so many looks? Like it doesn’t kill me to see you serve behind this bar?”

“Ness…”

She shakes her head. “I’ll pick Johnny up at eight.” 

Charity doesn’t see her again until she pulls up to collect Johnny. She doesn’t come inside, just sits in her car and waits and doesn’t make eye contact. Johnny’s practically vibrating with energy, like Moses is catching, when he says goodbye. He doesn’t even notice the moods the two of them are in. 

 

* * *

 

They get into a habit. On the weekends Moses isn’t with Ross, Johnny comes up to visit on the Sunday. He never stays the night, even though Moses tries to convince her to let them have a sleepover on Saturdays. It’s not her choice. Vanessa won’t let her have him for the night, and she can’t blame her, not really. She sometimes wonders how she’d behave if their positions were reversed.

But Vanessa has never been capable of the things Charity is. She’s far better than her. Painfully so. Those years with Vanessa had been a gift. She had never deserved her or Johnny.

She’s glad she gets to keep one of them.

 

* * *

 

Charity’s sure she’s seeing things when Noah barges into the restaurant before opening hours. But Chas looks over at her with the same expression of shock, so she guesses she hasn’t resorted to hallucinating her son just to feel close to him just yet.

He’s all sharp lines and bristling anger. Charity stops setting tables when he approaches. 

“Well, babe, this is a nice surprise.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Vanessa and Johnny?” 

Charity frowns. “I did.”

“No you didn’t. You left me out. You  _ always  _ leave me out.”

“Er, excuse me mister, but you’re the one who refuses to talk to  _ me. _ ” He rolls his eyes when she speaks. “And I did tell you about them. Don’t you listen to my voicemails?” 

That seems to stop his anger for a second. He scuffs his shoe against the floor they’ve just spent a ridiculous amount of money on getting washed. She can hear Chas nagging her about it in the back of her mind somewhere.

“I don’t get it. You let her leave after the fire even though we were  _ good, _ ” Noah bursts out. “And now suddenly they’re visiting you again? Out of nowhere?” 

“It’s not really out of nowhere, babe. Surely you’ve heard the gossip by now. You still talk to the rest of the family.”

Noah flops down into one of the chairs. He may be in his mid-twenties now, but he still behaves like a teenager most of the time. He fiddles with one of the napkins she’d just spent an age folding, loosening it and laying to flat. Charity settles into the seat opposite him, resting a hand over the cloth. 

“I used to visit her,” Noah confesses, “when she first left. She’d still send me and Moz birthday cards, just not to you. The cards had her address inside. Ryan would drive me.”

“I didn’t know that.” 

Noah watches her carefully, like he’s waiting for her to be angry, but she can’t be angry at him for it. Noah and Vanessa had their ups and downs. Debbie and Ryan had been kind and accepting of her. Moses and Johnny called her Mum. Noah had always flitted in the middle. Never accepting her properly because he was scared she’d leave, like all of Charity’s lovers did in the end. But she could see — they could both see — how much he wanted to trust Vanessa. Especially in the end. Vanessa had started to warm that icy exterior of his. And she hadn’t been his mother, but she hadn’t been just another one of his mum’s partners either. 

“It wasn’t right. I thought I missed her, but it was everything. I missed all of us living together. I stopped going to visit her and she still sent me birthday cards.” 

“She loves you,” Charity tells him.

Noah scowls. “But she left.” 

“Leaving doesn’t mean you’ve stopped loving. It just means you couldn’t stay.” 

He scrubs at his face, leaning on the table with his elbows. He look over to the window, and something in his expression — longing, or loneliness, or maybe a bit of both — reminds her of the boy he used to be. 

“I miss you, Noah.” 

He grits his teeth. She lets her hand cover his and he doesn’t pull away.

“I know you miss the way things used to be. I know you’re angry about it. And I’m sorry that I can’t make it go back to how it was. Believe me, babe, I’d do anything to go back.”

“You would?” 

“Anything,” she stresses. “But I can’t. And I miss you. So please, maybe answer my calls every now and then?”

Noah looks at her like he’s assessing her. He always does. Every one of Noah’s looks is calculated, designed for reading people in the name of self-preservation. That’s something he’s learned from her. It’s not entirely a bad thing.

“Alright,” he answers eventually. “But no more soppy, drunk voicemails. That’s why I stopped listening. Half of them didn’t make sense.” 

 

* * *

 

Charity slips up when she leaves Moses and Johnny alone in the house. They’re old enough that she should be able to trust them while she nips out to buy chips to go with their lunch. She returns to find Moses has a bump the size of an egg growing above his eyebrow and Johnny has a deep gash across his cheek that’s already gushed through two of the tea towels. 

By the time Johnny’s finally getting stitches at A&E and Moses has been checked over for concussion, Vanessa arrives. She’s a storm of yellow as she marches up to them. A few nurses even steer of out of warpath.

“What happened?” She demands. She reaches out and gently presses her fingers to the lump on Moses’ forehead. “How did you do this?” 

Moses winces. “I tripped down the stairs. John tried to catch me.” 

“Those banisters are sharper than they look,” Johnny adds. The nurse stitching him up roll her eyes.

“I only stepped out for a minute,” Charity says. “Promise.”

“You weren’t even  _ there? _ ”

“She couldn’t have stopped it from happening,” Johnny interjects. His nurse holds his jaw still. He still tries to speak. “Sorry.”

“They’re boys, Ness. They hurt themselves. It’s part of their job description.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Vanessa’s practically got steam coming out of her ears. The nurse finishes stitching Johnny and gives them instructions on how long to keep them dry for and when he’ll need to get them taken out. Vanessa grabs his things once they’re discharged, dragging Johnny to her car without giving him a chance to say goodbye to her or Moses. 

Moses is quiet on the drive home. He doesn’t even fiddle with the radio station or play his music through bluetooth. He normally hates her taste in music. She glances over at him a couple times to make sure he hasn’t passed out, thinking about the warning signs the doctor had told her to look out for, but he’s still wide awake, watching the world pass them through the window.

“Sorry I ruined it,” he eventually says as they pull up to Wishing Well.

“You didn’t ruin anything, Moz. Vanessa’s… protective.” 

Moses turns away from staring out of the window. 

“I really like having John back, Ma. I don’t want to mess it up.” 

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“I won’t let you,” she replies easily. Moses rolls his eyes. “I want him in my life as much as you do. A little bump to the head won’t stop me from keeping him with us.” 

 

* * *

 

She waits until she knows Johnny’s at school before she knocks on the front door.

Vanessa scowls when she opens it and spots who’s on her doorstep. Charity tries to keep her smile light and breezy. Nothing about that comes naturally to her. 

“Can I come in?”

Vanessa inches the door further closed, blocking entrance with her body. “No.” 

Charity rolls her eyes. “Dramatic doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m not being dramatic,” she splutters. “Charity, he got hurt on  _ your  _ watch, after you told me I could trust you with him. He had to have four stitches!” 

“C’mon, Vanessa, stitches are a rite of passage for boys. Moses practically lives in A&E.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” 

“I — “ She groans. No-one has as much power to throw her off of her game as Vanessa does. “Right. Next Sunday, have dinner with me.” 

Vanessa’s eyes double in size. “What?” 

“At the restaurant. On the house. Zak and Lisa’ll keep an eye on the boys. And we can finally hash everything out.” 

“Everything?”

Vanessa's voice quivers. Charity drops her shoulders, palms facing forwards. Open and honest, as she should've been all along. 

“Yeah, Ness. Everything.” 

Vanessa purses her lips. Charity knows she’s won her over.

“Maybe,” she replies tersely, and shuts the door in her face.

Charity doesn’t stop smiling the entire ride home.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's ridiculously dialogue-heavy, and I apologise in advance for it. But there are things to be said, after all...

“She’ll be here.”

Charity turns away from the windows to find Chas has stepped up behind her. The idle chat of the Sunday evening customers fills the room — the clink of glasses; easy laughter. It does nothing to soothe her worries though. She keeps watching out the window, even if it earns her a couple odd glances from patrons.

Chas takes her elbow, drawing her away. “C’mon. Moses said she’d dropped Johnny off, she’ll be here any second. No point putting her off by watching out the window like a deranged stalker.”

“I am  _ not  _ a stalker, thank you.” 

“Oh, right, cos it’s totally normal behaviour to practically be pressed up against the glass, is it?”

Charity sighs, pulling her arm free of Chas’s grip. She heads over to the booth table she’d reserved herself and Vanessa, making sure everything’s in perfect order. Inspects the glasses for fingerprints and refolds the napkins, even nudges the menus a couple inches to the left to make sure they’re perfectly aligned. She eyes up the burning candle in the middle, wondering if it’s too late to swap it for a new one. She should’ve got a new one out. Maybe there's still time to run to the back —

“Hey.” Chas touches her shoulder. “Everything’s perfect. Stop fussing.” 

“I know. I  _ know, _ ” she adds with a sigh when Chas shoots her a look. “I just want…”

Charity presses her lips together, looking away.

“To prove yourself?” 

Chas says it gently, but Charity takes a step away all the same. Chas has hit the nail on the head. Yet she doesn’t know how to tell Chas it’s too late for that — she’d buried herself in her own grave six years ago, when it comes to Vanessa. 

“You know,” Chas begins, grabbing a set of cutlery and polishing it, despite her admonishing Charity’s fussing, “you never did explain why you two broke up.”

“Course I did.”

“No, you didn’t. You spouted a bunch of rubbish about the fire being too much. But it doesn’t make sense. God help her, but Vanessa loved the bones of you. She’d never leave for no reason.”

“Well, she did,” Charity returns flatly. “What does it matter, anyway? She left. It’s over.” 

“Is it?” 

Chas sets the cutlery back down. Charity frowns at her.

“Chas, she’s engaged.”

“Yeah, and has been for four years. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“It tells me that she moved on quickly. So get your head out of the clouds. We’re going to have a mature conversation about how to split custody of our son. That’s it.”

Chas smirks. “If you say so.” The smirk falls as she looks over Charity’s shoulder. “Ah. Speak of the devil.”

Charity spins with her heart in her throat. Vanessa’s just stepping into the restaurant, hair spilling over her shoulders as she looks up, mouth dropping at the high ceiling.

Chas shoves her forward and Charity stumbles. Luckily, Vanessa’s too distracted to notice. 

Her hands feel clammy by the time she makes it over to her. It doesn’t help when Vanessa’s eyes finally meet hers and give her a hesitant little smile. She looks  _ good,  _ in a cream blouse interspersed with whales under a familiar blue blazer, fingers wrapped loosely around the strap of her bag. She’d forgotten how much she loved Vanessa’s bright wardrobe.

How much she loved her, really.

“Hey,” she gets out, a little strangled.

“Charity, this place is amazing,” Vanessa replies, scanning the room, “how the hell did you pull all this off?”

Charity knots her hands together, glancing around. Vanessa’s right. The place  _ is  _ amazing. It’s the one thing she’s really proud of. In a bid to distract herself from Vanessa leaving, Charity had thrown herself into building a new business with Chas. They’d had plenty of money from the insurance payout, but starting afresh had been hard, especially after they’d both agreed to move on from being landladies. The restaurant had been half the size when they’d first opened, and had attracted only a couple dozen curious patrons in the first week, but they’d steadily grown, and Chas and Charity had established a reputation for themselves months after. It’d allowed them to buy the shop next door and expand the restaurant.

Now, everything is rich and golden inside. Warm lighting and plush seats. Ambient music and an entire wall of glass cases displaying wine bottles. It’s the kind of place she married rich men to eat at. Now, she no longer needs a rich man. She runs the place. 

“Thanks.” Charity gestures to their booth. “C’mon. I kept one clear for us.” 

Vanessa follows behind her, grinning widely when Marlon peeks his head out from the kitchen curiously and gives her a wave. Chas meets them at the table as they settle opposite each other, greeting them with a bottle of wine.

“Alright, love?” Chas rests a hand on Vanessa’s shoulder, smiling. “Good to see you. It’s been too long.” 

Vanessa’s hand reaches up to squeeze Chas’s. “Agreed.”

“You need anything, you let me know, alright?” Chas gestures at Charity. “This one  _ still _ avoids work. You know what she’s like.” 

“Yes,” Vanessa agrees steadily, meeting Charity’s eyes, “I do.” 

When Chas shoots a pointed look at her, Charity busies herself pouring the wine. Chas leaves them on their own. Charity pretends to be engrossed in the pouring, but watches Vanessa out of the corner of her eye. She runs her fingers over the menu, the bishop’s hat napkins, the red glass of the candleholder. There’s a disbelief in her eyes that Charity isn’t entirely surprised by.

“You’ve really made something of yourself,” Vanessa comments when Charity finishes pouring.

Charity shrugs, screwing the lid back on and placing the bottle in the ice bucket. 

“These prices…” Vanessa begins, an index finger drifting over the menu.

“I told you, it’s on the house. Don’t worry about it.”

Vanessa shakes her head. “That’s not it. It actually made me wonder why you’re living with Zak and Lisa when you’re obviously making a fortune.” 

Charity’s laughter is sharp. “You know it’s rude to ask how much I earn, right babe?”

“Don’t call me that,” Vanessa retorts. Her eyes widen. “Sorry — ”

“No. It’s okay.”

Vanessa nods uneasily. She dips her head, eyes scanning the menu. Charity simply watches.

Chas returns, probably after spying on them and noticing that they’ve lapsed into silence. Charity orders without making eye contact with her cousin. Vanessa makes small talk with Chas while she orders, asking after Paddy and Aaron while complimenting the restaurant and the names they’ve made for themselves. Chas takes their menus after, and they’re left with no distractions.

“You don’t talk to Paddy anymore?” Charity finds herself asking.

Vanessa takes a sip of her wine. “I did, at first. But, you know, then Rhona moved away from the village, and I guess I had less reason to keep in contact with him.” 

“You still talk to Rhona, then?”

“Yeah. Now and then.” Vanessa runs a finger along the stem of her glass. “She and Pete got married a couple years ago. I went up for the ceremony. They were  _ so  _ happy.”

“That’s good.” Vanessa looks up in surprise at Charity’s words. “What? I’m glad she’s got a bit of happiness, after all she went through.” 

“Alright, who are you and what’ve you done with Charity Dingle?” 

Charity rolls her eyes as Vanessa smiles wryly. She waves a hand, taking a sip of her own wine to calm her nerves. 

“What about your Dad? Tracy?”

“Dad’s good. He lives in the next town. He’s actually settled, for once. Tracy moved near me then met a bloke and now she’s travelling the world, a bit late to be doing so if you ask me, but she calls home. Keeps in contact.” Vanessa pauses. “Tracy mentioned that she told you. When I got engaged.” 

“Yeah… she did.” 

Vanessa worries the ring on her finger. “It kind of felt like  _ I  _ should’ve been the one to tell you.”

“Why? You don’t owe me.” 

“You’re being nice,” Vanessa observes.

“It’s been known to happen.”

“Charity,” she sighs, “we’re never going to get anywhere if you’re not honest with me.”

“I am being honest with you. Besides, we’re here to talk about Johnny, right?”

“We’re here to talk about everything.”

“Maybe I don’t want to talk about  _ that _ ,” she replies, gesturing to the ring on Vanessa’s finger.

She looks away after, because the look on Vanessa’s face is too soft, too understanding. Charity almost wants to revert to her old self-defense. Her scathing remarks, her witty retorts. Maybe throw it back in Vanessa’s face — how many people  _ she’s  _ been with since they’d split.  _ I can move on too,  _ she wants to say, but Vanessa had always seen through her cruelty.

Charity’s hand rises to the third button of her blouse instinctively. Beneath the fabric, the chain she wears Vanessa’s engagement and wedding rings feels like it’s burning her skin. Her fingers curl around the button briefly.

Chas appears with their starters. She chatters into the silence as she sets the plates down. Charity glares at her until she holds her hands up and backs away. Vanessa begins chasing a piece of salad around her plate. 

“Go on, then,” Charity says with a sigh, running a spoon through her soup, “get it all off your chest.”

Vanessa sets her jaw, looking away, out to the other patrons. Charity follows her gaze. There’s an elderly couple in one booth, eating in silence, people watching like Charity. At one of the tables sits an extended family, celebrating a teenager’s eighteenth birthday, her mother’s arm wrapped tight around her shoulders as they pose for a picture. There’s two men at another booth, watching each other over the candle, and Charity can tell from the nerves radiating off of them that this is their first date.

She looks back to Vanessa. The red light from the candle paints her something dangerous. A warning, maybe, but she’s always been good at ignoring those. No, she’ll continue to plunder and loot, to ransack until everything’s empty and she holds all the answers, even if they hurt.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” Vanessa murmurs eventually. 

“Why not the start?”

“I don’t remember when I started being angry with you.”

Charity sets her cutlery down. “Wouldn’t it be when I told you about the fire?” 

“No. I think I could sense something was wrong long before that. I… that’s why Marnie happened. I felt ignored, and  _ angry,  _ and I wanted to get your attention. I wanted you to notice me.” Vanessa’s cheeks flush. “And then you forgave me so  _ easily. _ ”

“I was never any good at being angry with you.” 

“You made it so easy to be angry with you.”

Charity dunks her roll into the soup without buttering it. “That’s my whole M. O., babe.” She winces. “Sorry.”

“And this!” Vanessa waves a hand in the air. “You’re not… you’re not being  _ you _ . The old you would’ve told me to get over myself about a word. You would’ve called me babe just to get on my nerves.” 

“I’m not the old me, though,” she points out, “and it’s not my place to tell you what to do.” 

Vanessa growls, throwing her cutlery down on the table.

“I don’t understand you.” 

“I think you’re the only one who ever has.” 

It escapes her before she can think it through. Charity chances a glance at Vanessa. Her brow is furrowed and she worries her lower lip with her teeth.

“I don’t know how to stop being angry with you. I don’t know… how to trust you with Johnny. First you almost get him killed, and then you take him to  _ Lancaster  _ without telling me? To meet a sister I didn’t even know about?” 

“Ness — “ 

“And I  _ know  _ that you love him. I can see it written all over you. But I thought you would’ve learned by now not to go behind my back when it comes to my son.”

“ _ Our _ son,” she counters.

“Is he?” Vanessa presses. “Because you haven’t been in his life for six years, Charity.”

“You took him away.”

“I had no choice!”

A couple at a nearby booth shoots Vanessa a look. She takes a deep breath while Charity resists the urge to throw up a middle finger at them. They go back to their meal and whisper to each other.

“You think you’re the only one that lost a kid, Charity?” Vanessa glares at her. “I lost Noah and Moses, too. I had to  _ give them up _ . So don’t sit there complain about Johnny being taken away, because nothing is as hard as giving your children up.” 

Charity’s throat tightens. “I know.” 

Vanessa seems to realise what she’s said. Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t apologise. 

They eat their starters in silence. Charity tries not to stew on the words. Tries not to think about the fact that it was  _ her  _ fault Vanessa lost Moses and Noah. That they’d lost a mother figure. She thinks about the weeks after Vanessa had left, when Noah would barely even look at her, when he had gone back to university the minute he could get a train ticket and he’d never really spoken to her again. She thinks about Moses asking for his brother. The days he would kick a football around outside Wishing Well, naming his imaginary friend Johnny, pretending he was right there playing with him. 

Chas comes to clear their starters away, refilling their glasses as she does. This time she doesn’t try to fill the stony silence. She returns with their mains some time later, and Vanessa’s shoulders drop.

“He ran away when we moved to Preston.”

Charity’s almost chokes on her wine. “What?” 

“Yeah. His stint with you at Wishing Well wasn’t his first. He painted a picture at school. Of all the family. I had to tell him he’d never see you again. He told me he hated me and ran away.” 

Charity’s hands flutter around her sternum. “I didn’t know.”

Vanessa frowns. “He loves you  _ so  _ much.”

“Poor kid.”

Vanessa laughs wetly. “Yeah. Poor kid.” 

Charity finds herself smiling into her next bite of food. She hears Vanessa moan when she tastes her meal. It makes the tips of her toes tingle. 

“Oh, my god. This is amazing.” Vanessa comments, already stuffing more into her mouth. “I’d forgotten how much I missed Marlon’s food.”

“Yeah, well, take him with you if you like. He does my bloody head in. I can’t believe I’m  _ still  _ working with that blundering idiot.”

“You love him really,” Vanessa says lightly, cheeks full of food, a little reminiscent of a hamster. Charity finds herself laughing at the thought. “What?” 

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me.”

“It’s just, well, all this,” she says, pointing at her own cheeks and puffing them out, “you look like a hamster.” 

Vanessa goes bright red, chewing quickly until her cheeks are clear. She takes a large gulp of wine to wash it all down and almost chokes on it. Charity laughs harder. They’re beginning to gather stares from the other patrons, but Charity can’t stop herself, and soon enough Vanessa is sniggering along with her.

She hasn’t laughed like this in a long,  _ long  _ time.

Vanessa looks beautiful with it, too. Her eyes crinkling at the corners, cheeks round, hair falling around her shoulders. She looks so beautiful it almost hurts to look at her, but Charity can't bring herself to look anywhere else.

“Everyone’s staring at us,” Vanessa remarks, still grinning even when she turns her face away and tries to hide.

“They’re staring at  _ you _ .”

“Hey! You’re part of this, too.”

Charity’s lips curl up with delight.  _ Yes,  _ she thinks,  _ I am.  _ She’s part of Vanessa’s laughter again. 

To outsiders, they could be anyone. They could be on their first date. Their thousandth. They could be friends. Lovers. Wives. 

It’s a comforting thought, and she smiles wider.

Vanessa takes a smaller mouthful of food. She looks less hamster-like this time. 

“I didn’t think I could ever see us talking. Like this,” she remarks, and looks a little shy when she does, “and I didn’t think it’d be easy.”

“I just want…” Charity begins.

“Want what?” 

_ You,  _ she thinks,  _ and if not that, then anything else you’ll give me.  _

“I just want us to get along,” she settles on saying, watching Vanessa nod at her words. “For Johnny’s sake. Maybe we’ll never be friends, Ness. But we’re in each other’s lives. And how that works, well… that’s up to you.” 

Vanessa’s eyebrows lift. “Me?”

Charity shrugs. “You never did anything wrong. I’m the one that needs your forgiveness.” 

Vanessa sets her cutlery down, reaching for her wine. She takes a big swig. Then another smaller one, observing Charity over the top of the glass. The way she looks at her — it reminds Charity of their first proper date. They were already together by the time they’d gone out for a meal. They had approached their relationship backwards, after all. Vanessa had looked at her like this then. Like she was trying to figure Charity out. 

Charity had scoffed at the thought at the time. People didn’t stick around to figure her out. No, they took her at surface level. They took the sarcasm and the jabs and the sex. They didn’t look for  _ her.  _ How wrong she had been, back then. Maybe Vanessa had had her figured out from the very beginning.

Vanessa finally sets the wine glass down. She sighs.

“You know, I could’ve forgiven the fraud. Maybe I could’ve even forgiven you for the arson if Johnny hadn’t been hurt. If you had just told me from the beginning.”

Charity stops breathing. “What?” 

“Charity. Seriously. My dad was a con man. He even got mixed up in fraud with  _ you _ . I forgave him for all of it, what he did in the village and before, even if it meant he wasn’t around during my childhood. I know you like to think I’m sheltered, but Charity, I’m tougher than you think. And you didn’t give me credit for that.” 

“No,” Charity admits, “I didn’t.” 

“I don’t know if I would’ve gone along with it. But, God, I would’ve forgiven you if you’d just  _ told  _ me. We were married. That’s what married people do. Work through problems together.” 

She doesn’t know what to say to that. She grips her own wine glass tightly. 

_ I would’ve forgive you if you’d just told me.  _

“But you didn’t. And then Johnny almost died,” Vanessa murmurs, “and it took you six years to apologise.”

Her head snaps up.

“What? No it didn’t.”

“Yes, it did.”

Charity ransacks her memories. Vanessa, smiling. Vanessa, hers. Johnny in a hospital bed.

Vanessa, leaving. 

“When you were at my house with Johnny,” Vanessa explains, “and you said sorry then. That was the first time. Before that, all you did was try to get me to understand it.” She lifts a shaking hand to her mouth. “You have  _ no  _ idea what that meant to me.” 

Charity closes her eyes with a sigh, resting her head in her hands. Six years. It took her six years to apologise for almost killing their son. God, the fact Vanessa has given her another chance with Johnny is sounding even luckier by the second. She almost got him killed. And then she’d let Vanessa leave without even an apology?

“God, I’m…” She looks back up and finds the tears are spilling from Vanessa’s eyes. “Ness. I’m sorry.”

Vanessa lets out an unsteady breath.

“I know.” 

The rings burn brighter against her chest. She’d never deserved Vanessa at all. 

Vanessa sniffs, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. 

Truth spills out of Charity, soft and open.

“I really,  _ really _ loved you.”

Vanessa pauses. She gives her a sad smile.

“I really, really loved you too.”

Something tight inside of Charity’s chest releases. Washes away. She breathes for the first time in six years. She’d never deserved Vanessa, no. But in spite of everything, they had they been happy. To hear it from Vanessa’s mouth…

“Oh. Sorry. Bad time?”

They both look up to find Chas stood by the table. She grimaces when she spots the tears on Vanessa’s cheeks. Vanessa hastily wipes them away. Chas clears away their plates, shooting a questioning look to Charity.

“Dessert?”

“Just a coffee for me, Chas,” she responds, voice still unsteady. “Ness?”

“Me too.” 

Chas disappears again. The mood is broken. Charity drains the last of her wine from the glass. It’s gone to her head a little, makes her feel slightly floaty. She knows she’ll have to watch her tongue. God forbid she tells Vanessa that, actually, she’s still in love with her. That she’s tried not to be, but there’s nothing she can do to stop it. She’s a tide, Vanessa the moon. She’ll follow her direction always.

Chas places the coffees in front of them. Charity curls her hand around the warmth of the ceramic.

“Has Johnny told you about Sarah’s wedding?”

Vanessa nods. Her eyes are still slightly red.

“I can’t believe she’s so grown up now.” 

“You’re telling me. I looked away for two seconds and she’s got a ring on her finger.” Charity takes a sip of her coffee. “You should come. To the wedding, I mean.”

“Oh, I don’t know…”

“I’ve even invited Camila. And it’d give Noah the chance to see you.”

Vanessa hesitates. She traces patterns into the tablecloth and doesn’t meet Charity’s eyes.

“How is Noah?”

“Moody. His usual self.”

She expects Vanessa to laugh, but she doesn’t.

“I don’t think he’s forgiven me for leaving,” Vanessa admits quietly.

“I don’t think he’s forgiven me for letting you go.”

Vanessa makes a little sound at that. Charity has no idea what it means. She continues watching Vanessa steadily. Her ex-wife shifts under her gaze, frowning into her coffee. 

“You could bring your fiancée, if you wanted,” Charity offers.

_ That  _ makes Vanessa look up. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Charity clears her throat. “Really.”

“Well… okay then. When is it?”

“Couple weeks. I’ll give you my invite when you next drop Johnny off.” She stops, mug halfway to her mouth. “You  _ are  _ going to keep letting me see Johnny, right? You know I’d never hurt him?”

Vanessa sighs. “Yes, Charity. I know. But when I got the call that he was in A&E… on  _ your  _ watch… it took me back to all that anger.”

“I get it.”

“You do?”

“Give me some credit here, Vanessa. I have been known to have a heart.”

Vanessa’s eyes soften.

“From time to time,” she says.

“Yeah,” Charity echoes. “From time to time.” 

They finish the last dregs of their coffees. The other patrons have vacated the restaurant. One of the waitresses is going around cleaning the tables as Chas counts the takings behind the bar. She hadn’t even realised they were alone. 

Vanessa looks around, and seems to come to the same realisation as her. Charity pushes her coffee away and stands. Vanessa copies her, pulling the strap of her bag onto her shoulder.

“So…” Charity says, clasping her hands in front of her.

“Thank you,” Vanessa supplies, “for being honest.”

Charity shrugs. “You make it easy.”

Vanessa tilts her head.

“I’ll see you at the wedding, then.”

“Yeah,” Charity replies, and Vanessa’s already turning away.  _ I’ll be the one in white,  _ she’d said, on their own wedding day. “See you at the wedding.” 

When Vanessa reaches the door, she looks back over her shoulder, giving Charity a little wave before she goes. 

Chas appears at her elbow the minute Vanessa’s out the door. Charity rolls her eyes, but lets her cousin thread their arms together regardless. Music plays quietly as they stand together.

“So? What’s the verdict, then?”

Charity watches Vanessa walk away, running a hand through her long hair as she does. A local walking their dog passes her and she gives them a smile, sunny and bright.

“I really hit the jackpot with her, didn’t I?”

“It took you this long to notice?”

Charity shakes her head. “No. Just to appreciate it.”

Chas squeezes her arm. “You were happy before…” 

“No. It was more than that,” Charity replies, and Vanessa disappears out of view. “Lightning in a bottle.”

 

* * *

 

Johnny’s seven when he has his first crush.

He tells her all about Jessica Macklin as she tucks him in to bed that night. She and Vanessa have already had to separate him and Moses from sharing a room like they usually do on a Friday night, because of Moses’s complaining that Johnny won’t stop talking.

“I’m going to get my happy ever after with her,” he chatters away, “like in the stories.”

Charity purses her lips. “You know stories aren’t like real life, Johnnybobs.” 

“But she’s so pretty, Ma. She’s like a  _ princess _ .”

“So, what? You’re her prince?”

He blows a raspberry. “Princes are rubbish.”

“Says who?” 

“Mum. She said Robin Hood’s better.”

Charity holds in a snigger. She sets about switching his lamp on as he climbs into bed and she pulls the covers over him, reminding herself to bring up Vanessa’s concept of romantic heroes with her later.

“Plus, stupid Ryan Cornell thinks he’s going to be her prince. But  _ I’ll  _ show her. I’m a catch!” 

Charity can’t stop her laughter at that one. But Johnny looks so optimistic, so genuinely thrilled, that she finds herself settling by his hip. Vanessa had told her to leave it — that little kids have different crushes every day of the week. Moses had had one on Ryan Cornell last month, and now they're sworn enemies. But she feels like her son needs some warning. A little bit of life advice. 

“You know, kid, in real life sometimes it doesn’t work the first time around. Maybe the second. Sometimes it doesn’t ever work at all.”

He pouts. She brushes the hair away from his face.

“That’s sad.”

“All endings are sad,” she counters, and leans down to press a kiss to his forehead, “but most middles are happy. That’s the important bit. Find the happy middle.”

He frowns. “Like my tummy?”

She rests a hand above his heart. It beats solidly beneath her palm.

“No,” she answers, and listens to the sounds of Moses snoring from his room, of Noah swearing at his video games, of Vanessa getting ready for bed. All of their gentle domesticity. “Like this.”


	8. Chapter 8

"If I could have done it all again, I would have loved you better. But I could not have loved you more."

**Nothing But Strawberries, Sue Zhao**

 

* * *

 

 

Charity searches through the endless maze of hallways for the room Debbie had told her to meet them. She passes by an elderly couple who give her a once over and Charity widens her eyes at them, daring them to say something. Once they’re out of sight, she smooths a hand over her outfit self-consciously. She’s sprung for a dress and blazer look today.

Eventually, she finds the room, pushing the door open to find Sarah sat at a dressing table. Debbie’s curling the ends of her hair. Sarah brightens when she spots Charity in the reflection.

“Gran!”

“Hey, kid,” she replies easily. She fiddles with the box in her hands. “Big day. How you feeling?”

“I’m well excited.” Sarah’s eyes turn back to her own reflection as Debbie sets the last curl in her hair, the top half swept up in a complicated braid. “Thanks, Mum.”

Debbie smooths her hands along Sarah’s shoulders, bending down to meet her gaze in the mirror. Her eyes are watery.

“You look beautiful.”

Sarah’s chin wobbles. “Thank you.”

Charity walks over to the dressing table. “Don’t cry. It’ll ruin your makeup.”

The words are a little too brisk, but Sarah nods. Debbie stands again and pats her own cheeks carefully as a few tears slip out. Charity pulls a face at her to make Sarah laugh then places the small velvet box down on the dressing table in front of Sarah.

“What’s this?” Sarah asks.

“Well, you know that old rhyme. Stupid stuff. I heard your Mum sorted you out with everything except,” Charity taps the box, “something borrowed.”

Debbie eyes her curiously as Sarah lifts the lid to the box open. Inside sits a hair pin. It’s a plain white flower with a sapphire set in the middle, a few lines twisting away from it like little branches.

“Wow,” Sarah remarks, pressing a finger to the pin carefully. “This is amazing.”

“Wore it when I got married to Vanessa,” she supplies quietly.

Debbie’s _definitely_ eyeing her up now. But Charity nudges her aside, reaching for the pin and slotting it into Sarah’s updo with shaking hands.

“There,” she murmurs, “beautiful.”

When she looks at Sarah in the mirror, her eyes have welled up with tears again. She rests her chin on her granddaughter’s shoulder.

“Hey, what did I say? No crying.” She squeezes Sarah’s elbows. “Now, c’mon. I want to see you in that dress.”

Sarah lets Debbie whisk her away to get changed in the ridiculously extravagant bathroom. Debbie shoots her a pointed look but Charity pretends not to see it, fussing with her own hair in the mirror instead.

When she hears the door close behind them, Charity’s shoulders slump as she lets out a sigh. She’s spent painfully long on her makeup and outfit today. All in the name of impressing Vanessa, though she’d never admit it to anyone.

Charity rests her hands on the back of the chair, glancing around the room. She hadn’t had this, exactly, with her marriage to Vanessa. No fancy hotels and lush bridal gatherings. It was just her and Chas in the back room of The Woolpack. Her hands had shaken so much that her eyeliner had wound up halfway up her cheek. Chas had definitely redone that.

But then, there’d been room she’d waited in before they were ready to call them through.

Charity sits down at the dressing table now, smiling to herself. It doesn’t hurt anymore, looking back on her life with Vanessa. For so long she had let it swallow her whole. She’d let guilt succumb to sadness. Now she thinks about her wedding day, and there’s nothing but happiness.

 

* * *

 

“Will you stop fussing?”

Chas bats Charity’s hands away from her hair. They’d settled on following a complicated updo on a YouTube video, something they’d practiced whenever Vanessa hadn’t been around, a simple but beautiful hairpin placed where the hair meets at the back of her head.

It feels like it’s starting to fall out, though, and even as Chas tries to stop her and glares at her Charity can’t help but check that it’s all held in place.

“Charity!” Chas nudges her hands away again. “Seriously. There’s enough hairspray in there that you’ll have this look for your whole bloody honeymoon.”

Charity slumps down in the chair at the dressing table, assessing her reflection.

“What d’you think? Bit more blush?” She asks Chas.

“I think you look perfect and that you need to stop worrying. In ten minutes you’re getting married.”

There’s a flutter inside her stomach. A riot of butterflies, spreading their wings. Her hands twist in the skirt of her wedding dress and she notices her reflection is grinning from ear to ear.

Chas smiles at her over her shoulder. “How’re you feeling?”

“I… don’t know,” she answers honestly.

Chas squeezes her shoulder.

“You know I’m really, really happy for you.”

“Thanks, Chas.”

“And don’t screw this up. She’s a keeper.” Chas actually _wags a finger_. “They don’t all come like her.”

“Trust me. I know how lucky I am.”

There’s a knock on the door. Charity’s eyes flick to the clock. It isn’t time yet.

Chas heads over to the door. From the position at the chair, Charity can’t see who it is, but Chas gasps, catching her attention. Charity twists to see but Chas practically closes the door so that only her head can stick out.

“What’re you doing here? It’s bad luck!”

“Sorry, Chas, but we’ve already broken that rule,” Charity hears Vanessa respond. The butterflies work their way up to her chest. “Five minutes?”

“Well…” Chas looks over her shoulder. Charity nods at her. “Close your eyes at least, Charity.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Charity closes her eyes, settling back into her seat. She hears Chas leave and Vanessa enters, the door closing behind her. There’s the soft sweep of her dress against the floor, the light click of heels. She desperately fights against the urge to open her eyes and see how beautiful Vanessa looks. They’d considered dress shopping together, but Tracy had whisked Vanessa off and declared that just because they were both women, that didn’t mean they got to ignore _all_ traditions.

Vanessa’s hands cover her eyes. “Guess who?”

Charity laughs. “Babe, I’ve already heard you practically begging Chas to see me.”

“Excuse me, I didn’t _beg._ ”

“Sure you didn’t,” Charity replies lightly. Her fingers reach up to trail the length of Vanessa’s forearms. “So, what’s this visit for then? Second thoughts?”

“Never.”

“Because no-one would blame you if you did, babe.”

“I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Charity Dingle,” she responds steadily. Charity feels the butterflies cluster in her throat. “I guess I just wanted a moment with you before all of it.”

“What? Our little quickie earlier not enough for you? Well, babe, you know I’m not one to turn down — “

“ _Stop,_ Charity,” she interrupts, but laughter makes her hands shake against Charity’s face. “God, Tracy and Rhona would kill me if they knew I was here. I had to tell them I just wanted to get some air on my own. They’ve been fussing over me all morning.”

“Good. You deserve to be fussed over.”

“I don’t know about that. But, well… I just wanted to say. I love you.”

The butterflies escape as words, “I love you too.”

Vanessa’s hands pull away from her eyes. Charity lets them blink open.

She meets Vanessa’s gaze in the mirror. Her hair is long and curly, reaching the sweetheart neckline of her dress. She looks beautiful and completely, wholly, _hers._

Charity rises to a stand. Vanessa’s eyes sweep, taking in her dress, her hair, and meet Charity’s again when she twines their hands between them, as though they’re already stood at the altar.

“Hi,” Vanessa whispers.

Charity crosses the gap between them.

“Hi,” she murmurs, before the next kiss.

 

* * *

 

The ceremony goes on without a hitch. They all head to a nearby hotel for the reception. Charity hops in a cab with Noah, Moses and Ryan, who are all dressed in suits. Ryan’s is probably a little less formal because he still insists on wearing that bloody baseball cap.

She finds herself nervously playing with the hem of her dress when they arrive. Noah pays the cab driver and heads inside with his brothers. Charity stands outside, looking for a familiar car, but can’t spot it. Then another cab pulls up, and Johnny steps out, tall and handsome and dressed to the nines.

He makes a beeline straight for her. “Hey.”

“Wow, look at you,” she says, thumbing one of the lapels of his suit jacket, “very handsome.”

He practically preens.

“Thanks. Mum picked it out. My tie matches her dress,” he tells her, motioning to the yellow monstrosity tied around his neck. “Cool, right?”

“She’s here, then? Your mum?”

“Yeah. She came in the cab with me and Maya.”

Johnny turns. Charity follows his line of sight and spots Vanessa walking towards them immediately.

The dress she’s wearing is simple. Yellow, halterneck, the skirt spanning out around her knees. Her hair gets caught up in the light summer breeze as she laughs at something the woman with her is saying. Charity’s throat clogs. She looks… she looks beautiful. Radiant.

Though it hurts, she studies the woman walking arm-in-arm with Vanessa. It’s definitely the woman from the picture. Her dark hair curls to her shoulders. She’s taller than Vanessa, probably taller than Charity too, and dressed in a black jumpsuit that accentuates her tiny waist. Charity feels herself drawing her shoulders neatly, correcting her posture as they approach.

“Charity,” Vanessa greets her with a smile. Her hand continues to rest in the crook of the woman’s elbow. “This place looks beautiful. How’d the ceremony go?”

“Um, yeah,” she responds stupidly. _Get a grip,_ she tells herself. “No, it actually went really well. I can’t believe she’s actually married. I feel like she’s still a kid.”

“Well, that’s what we all think, isn’t it? About our kids? Or, well, grandkid, in your case.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“This is Maya, by the way.” Vanessa nods to the woman beside her. “Maya, this is Charity. Johnny’s Ma.”

The statement makes her palms sweat. Maya holds out a hand and Charity tries to keep her grip strong as they shake. Maya’s grip is firm.

“Nice to meet you, Charity.”

She knows she should respond the same, but she forgets how to make words work. There’d been a time when she would’ve made swipes at someone like Maya, just as she used to do with Moira. But Cain hadn’t been important to her like Vanessa had; she’d wound up Moira simply to try and stake some sort of claim over Cain. Now, she can’t translate insults to love.

“Is Camila here yet?” Johnny asks, glancing around.

“I dunno, kid. She might be inside. Her mum did say they were on their way earlier.”

“Wicked.” He grins and presses a quick kiss to her cheek. She blinks. “See you inside.”

He bounds through the door, following the rest of the guests inside. Charity raises her eyebrows at Vanessa.

“He’s excited to meet the rest of his family. Properly, I mean,” Vanessa explains. Her hand tightens on Maya’s elbow. “We’ll see you inside too, then?”

“Oh. Yeah, alright. I reckon I’ll wait for Sarah to arrive.”

Vanessa’s already moving past her with Maya. “Okay.”

They disappear through the door, the flash of Vanessa’s skirt disappearing around the corner the last thing Charity sees of the them.

She turns her gaze back to the arrival of cars and guests, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. She doesn’t know why she had expected anything else. She had _told_ Vanessa to bring her fiancee. She’d prepared for it, to witness someone else make Vanessa laugh, to touch her. Yet she feels completely thrown off guard.

Six years apart means she hasn’t had to accept that Vanessa’s moved on, not really. Hearing about her engagement through Tracy and photographs hadn’t felt real. Even now, sometimes, she doesn’t think the divorce feels real. She knows legally they aren’t married anymore. The only reason they have a link anymore is through the parenting of their son.

And yet —

Charity sighs, fiddling with the chain around her neck. She has no idea where to set the past down. How to let go of it all like everyone else.

 

* * *

 

She finds Johnny, after the speeches and dinner, twirling Camila around on the dancefloor. Moses has joined them, doing some sort of dance that she thinks is meant to be a breakdance. Paddy, whose back has played up on him too many times for him to dance anymore, is filming Moses from his seat, sniggering to himself.

“Hey, kid,” she says, resting a hand at his elbow. “Having a good time?”

He grins at her. “You Dingles really know how to party.”

“Charity!” Camila yells, running forward and colliding with her legs. She throws her arms around her. “I’ve missed you.”

“How you doing, Camila?”

Camila smiles up at her. “I’m seven now!”

“Wow. You’ll be paying your taxes any day now.”

Camila frowns at her.

"You gonna dance with us?" 

"Nah, that's not really my style, kid. If you want me, you'll find me at the bar."

Johnny grins. "Okay, Ma."

Charity forgets how to breathe.

A new song comes on and Johnny whisks his sister away to dance. She watches them for beat, heart in her throat, before she turns away.

Charity heads over to the bar, flagging the bartender down for a glass of wine, and observing the crowds around her. Vanessa’s standing in the doorway which leads to the hotel gardens. Charity takes a sip of her wine as she watches her. Almost like she can tell she’s being watched, Vanessa glances over her shoulder, meeting Charity’s eyes. She offers her a small smile before she steps outside.

Charity takes a larger sip of her wine and rests against the bar with a sigh.

Chas appears at her side. "What's going on there, then?"

Charity rolls her eyes. "It's a wedding. Don't you have something better to do than poke your nose in my business?"

Her cousin signals down the bartender and orders her own drink. They stand together in silence while they wait for Chas to be served. Charity holds her glass loosely, watching the dance floor, at the ease which Johnny and Moses interact. She hadn't realised how much she needed to see them like this — brothers, at a family do, like no time has passed at all. Then her eyes stray towards the doorway without her permission, as if Vanessa will have reappeared without her noticing, but all she finds is Samson wandering through the door with a pint in hand.

"So..." Chas begins again. "That's her fiancée."

"Yeah. Maya."

She buries herself in wine again after she says the name. Chas tilts her drink towards Charity.

"You're still in love with her. It's written over you plain as day."

"I told you, we're over. Have been for six years."

"Charity," Chas sighs, "if you're not even gonna try and win her back, then you've got to get over her."

"I am."

"I bet even Vanessa can see you're not."

Charity stops. "Really?"

"Ha! I knew it." Chas practically slams her drink down on the bar. "So, c'mon, what's your plan?"

"I don't have a plan."

"Winging it? Doesn't look like that's worked out for you so far."

"Will you put a bloody lid on it?" Charity snaps. "Look, when Johnny came to me it wasn't... I didn't have some weird ulterior motive to win Vanessa back, alright? He's my _kid_. I'd never use him to get to her. I helped him because I wanted to help _him_. I wasn't even supposed to see Vanessa again. But that's how it's worked out, and now all I want is for us to get along, alright? For the sake of the kids. We already had our time. And what we had was brilliant."

Chas pouts, tracing the rim of the glass.

"Really?"

Charity watches as Noah joins Johnny and Moses on the dance floor. He shakes Johnny's hand. Johnny's taller than him, but the grin and childlike insistence to prove himself to his older brother gives his age away.

"Really," Charity murmurs.

 

* * *

 

Later, Charity finds herself exploring the gardens. They're grand, luxurious, and completely private to them, as Indigo has rented the entire place for the reception. She feels comfortable just wandering around, taking in the flourishing colours of the flowers, discovering a veranda covered in fairy lights, a swimming pool that dances under the afternoon sun. Eventually she happens upon a hedge maze. She considers it for a moment, it’d certainly be easy to lose herself inside, but walks away.

 

* * *

 

 

On her second glass of wine, she joins Ryan and Irene at their table, who are sitting with Belle and Lisa. The women are all discussing whether they think the wedding band takes song requests. Charity rolls her eyes and plops down next to her son, playfully tugging on the bill of his cap.

“Alright?”

“Awesome,” he replies, and she eyes up how many empty glasses are sat in front of him. “I saw Vanessa.”

Charity attempts to lean back in her chair casually. “Yeah?”

“Yup,” Ryan says, popping the _p_. “She said I could have Johnny round to visit, if I wanted. You know, on pizza night.”

Charity’s chest feels like a hand curling up into a fist. She bites down on the inside of her lip.

“So I guess I have tons of brothers again. Cool,” he adds with a lopsided grin. “And Vanessa.”

“Yeah,” she echoes. “And Vanessa.”

 

* * *

 

Charity makes her way over to the bar to deposit her empty glass of wine. Pub habits. A cacophony of yellow appears at her side, offering her a bright smile. Charity forgets how to breathe.

“Hi,” Vanessa says. There’s a sheen of sweat on her forehead. “The music’s amazing.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Vanessa nods her head to the beat of whatever god awful song Sarah has had them play. Charity’s fingers tighten around her glass involuntarily. When the bartender makes his way over to them, she ends up ordering another glass of wine, even though she can tell the previous one has already gone to her head. She probably should’ve done more than just pick at the dinner they’d been given earlier.

Vanessa turns, resting her elbows against the bar. Her eyes shine soft under the light as she studies Charity.

“It looks good on you. The blonde.”

Charity reaches up and touches her own hair. “Oh. Easier to hide the grey.”

“You look…”

“What?”

Vanessa shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

But she fills in the gaps, and thinks it does.

Charity takes a deep breath, straightening her spine as she does.

“So…”

Vanessa accepts the drink the bartender passes her.

“So…” she echoes.

There’d been a time when they had never run out of things to say to each other. Vanessa filled the space most — babbling about her day, or a cute kitten someone had brought into work, or Noah’s recent pranks on the boys. Even if she hadn’t, the silence had been comfortable.

Charity looks down into the pale wine of her drink.

“I’m glad we’re like this,” she finds herself confessing, “you know, for the boys.”

She sees Vanessa shift from the corner of her eye.

“Me too, Charity.”

Charity frowns. She clears her throat.

“And, you know, in the spirit of saying things too late,” she murmurs, meeting Vanessa’s eyes as sweat forms on the back of her neck, “I didn’t regret it either, you know. Me and you.”

Vanessa’s lower lip wobbles. Her eyes do that thing where they go wide when she tries not to cry. She twists her body to face the bar again, cutting her emotions off from the Dingle audience, but facing just so Charity can see. Charity reaches out without thinking, squeezing Vanessa’s wrist. Vanessa doesn’t pull away.

Eventually, Vanessa lets out a shaky laugh, dropping her head into her hands.

“What’s funny?” Charity asks, frowning harder.

“I don’t know. Nothing.”

A little insulted, Charity looks out to the dancefloor again. She spots Noah watching them sullenly, resting against the wall.

“Have you spoken to Noah yet?”

Vanessa stops laughing. She fusses with the skirt of her dress.

“Oh, I don’t think he wants — “

“I think he does.”

She nods to Noah. He slinks away from the dancefloor, heading out of the room. Vanessa looks up just in time to catch him throwing a look back at them.

“He was always so like you,” Vanessa says with a sigh.

“Oi, I’m not that moody.”

“No, you’re worse,” Vanessa counters. She takes a deep breath and picks up her drink. “Wish me luck?”

“You don’t need it.”

Vanessa rolls her eyes good-naturedly. Charity watches her follow Noah out of the door. She abandons the glass of wine at the bar. For once, she wants a clear head.

 

* * *

 

 

Maya finds her in the toilets.

Charity’s reapplying her mascara and wiping away any that’s smudged under her eyes, so busy with her own reflection that she doesn’t notice the woman slip into the room. She caps her mascara and stuffs it back into her clutch.

“I thought we could have a chat.”

Charity spins, a hand clutching her chest, with a gasp.

“Jesus,” she lets out, “give a woman some warning, would you?”

Maya doesn’t even blink. She joins Charity at the sink, giving her own reflection a once-over and combing her hair back into place with her hands. Charity grips her bag. The woman gives off an effortless beauty — sort of pixie-like with her sharp features that still give her a soft aura. And, Charity thinks snidely, she’s young. Not Kirin-young, but the woman can’t be past her mid forties.

“It’s about Vanessa.”

“Right.”

Maya lifts herself to sit on the countertop, legs swinging in the air.

“I love her. A _lot_ ,” Maya emphasises, widening her eyes. “And I don’t want to see her hurt.”

Charity’s spine stiffens.

“Well, if you’re here to tell me off for history, you can sod off. Not really your business, is it?”

“Vanessa’s my business.”

Charity clenches her teeth. “She doesn’t need a protector. She never did. So what you’re doing now? You’re embarrassing her. Vanessa’s a grown-up. She can make her own decisions.”

Charity spins on the spot, intending on making a dramatic exit, preferably with a slamming door that’ll leave an impact on Maya. But before she can even blink, Maya’s stood between her and the door, blocking her path. Maya has a few inches on her, and she uses them to her advantage.

“We’re not done.”

Charity straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin.

“You want to play?” Charity says, her tone the knife-edge between soft and threatening. “Oh, I can play.”

Maya narrows her eyes.

“She’s a good woman. You and I both know she’s more than you deserve.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“Don’t I?”

Charity clenches her jaw. Maya lifts one eyebrow.

“Now, as I was saying,” Maya continues, “I don’t want to see her hurt. So if you think that’s what you’re going to do, to her or Johnny, then do the right thing and leave them alone.”

But she’d been told that before —  _do the right thing, let us go._ And she’d done it. She’d released her hold on Vanessa and Johnny and lived a pale imitation of a life without them. Now, she’s prepared to hold onto them tightly, even if it’s hurts her. She can’t lose them again. She won’t.

“I won’t hurt them,” Charity practically growls, “but if you don’t move out of my way, I can’t say the same for you.”

To her credit, Maya doesn’t even flinch.

“I have no idea what she sees in you,” Maya murmurs, “but she can’t say I didn't try.”

“What?”

“To warn her.”

Charity’s head spins. “I don’t follow.”

Maya shakes her head. “No. I guess you wouldn’t.”

The fight leaks out of Maya. Her shoulders drop. When she steps back and opens the door, Charity thinks she spots a sheen of tears in her eyes.

“Just… be kind, alright?” Maya asks. “Just be kind to her.”

Maya steps out of the door before Charity can get a word in edgeways. Charity stands still for a moment, flummoxed. Then she grabs the handle of the door, intending to hunt Maya down to explain, but she bumps straight into Vanessa.

Vanessa grips her shoulders as they stumble backwards into the toilets. As Charity catches her, she notices that Vanessa’s eyes are dewy. Her hands raise without her permission, cupping her ex-wife’s face.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I forgot what it was like.”

“What?”

“All of it,” Vanessa breathes, “the way your family is, all their eccentricities, the acceptance… you.”

Vanessa’s watching her earnestly, but Charity has no idea what it is she’s looking for. She lets her hands drop from Vanessa’s face, resting at her sides again. Vanessa’s fall away from her too.

“You talked to Noah?”

Vanessa nods. A tear escapes her eyes, running down her cheek. Vanessa catches it with the back of her hand, sniffing.

Charity’s mouth opens to ask her what happened, but a drunken Faith and Chas stumble in through the door. It knocks against their shoulders but the others don’t notice them, too busy singing — badly. Vanessa rubs at her own shoulder.

“How about we take a walk?” Charity offers. “You know, through the gardens?”

Vanessa nods. “Yeah. Alright.”

 

* * *

 

A crepuscular sky spans above them as they step outside. They further they walk, the more distant the sound of the Dingles singing along to Saturday Night becomes, until they fade completely. It’s just her and Vanessa, the wisp of her skirt, and the sound of Nightingales singing.

They don’t speak. The more they walk, the more comfortable it becomes, until Charity’s almost sure they could slip back into their old roles. As they pass by garden beds of colourful flowers, she begins to fool herself that they _are_ how they were, six years ago. Vanessa as her wife, their sons back inside causing havoc, their family envious of how in love they are.

She leads them to the wooden gazebo she’d found earlier. It’s off the beaten path, they have to balance precariously on their heels over cobblestones to get to it, but as Charity gives Vanessa a helping hand, she’s rewarded with a bright smile. Even as they head up the stairs to it, Vanessa’s still smiling, earlier tears forgotten. The fairy lights are useless at this hour, but the gazebo overlooks a lake. A mother swan leads her cygnets through some of the lily pads as Vanessa leans against the railings, watching contently.

Charity takes a seat, watching birds twist and turn as the sun begins to set. Everything’s painted orange, even the yellow of Vanessa’s dress.

There’s so many things she wants to say. So she says this:

“You are so beautiful.”

Vanessa blushes. She glances over at her. “Charity…”

“I know.” Charity shrugs. “But it’s true.”

Vanessa sighs, taking a seat. She cushions her cheek against her arm, watching the sun set.

“What did Noah say?”

“I deserved a lot it,” Vanessa replies quickly. “I should’ve tried harder, after I left.”

“He’s always been a moody git. He makes it difficult.”

Vanessa shakes her head. “He’s been through a lot. And then I proved his fears right.”

Charity shuffles closer, reaching out to grip one of Vanessa’s hands. She waits until Vanessa looks at her before she speaks.

“Right, let’s get this said, yeah? What happened between me and you? You and Noah? All of it? That’s on me. You did what was best for you and Johnny. You were as much a victim as Noah.”

Vanessa stares at their hands, gnawing on her lower lip. Charity reaches out and stops her with a thumb. Vanessa glances back up at her with wide eyes.

“You know the way you feel about Johnny? That he’s your son…” Vanessa frowns, looking back to the lake. “That’s how I felt about Moses and Noah when I left. It almost killed me. It still does, when I think about it. But nothing hurts more than knowing they think I abandoned them.”

“Ness—”

“Don’t, Charity. I _know_ they both think it. And, thank god, Moses is forgiving. But I don’t know where to even start with Noah.”

“Right here. Just start from right here. You remember how he was when we got together, yeah? Didn’t even want you in the same place as him. But you got there in the end with him, didn’t you? You can do that again.”

Vanessa sniffs, eyes shimmering with tears. She angles her body away and slips her hand free from Charity’s. Charity lets her go, remembering Maya’s words from before: _just be kind to her._

Maybe that’s all Vanessa had ever really needed. She’d been used to her Dad’s disappearing acts; Rhona’s manipulation; Kirin’s abandonment. All of that had made her strong, and independent, in spite of her sunny disposition. Charity had made the mistake, in the past, of thinking she needed to be strong for the both of them. But she thinks Maya might have hit the nail on the head with that one. She only ever needed someone to be kind.

“Was it worth it?”

Charity’s eyes flicker over to Vanessa. She looks like warm honey in the amber light.

“The money?” Charity shakes her head. “Nothing was worth losing you.”

Vanessa’s shoulders lift, and drop slowly. She nods.

Charity rises to a stand, slipping her heels off. They tumble over as she kicks them aside. Vanessa turns towards her with a frown.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m not walking over all _that_ again with these on,” she explains, gesturing to the cobblestones, “and it’s time we got moving.”

Vanessa slips her heels off, but pulls them up onto the bench with her. She glances back to the lake. “I’m fine right here.”

“No you don’t,” Charity replies, grabbing Vanessa’s hands and pulling her to a stand. Vanessa stumbles upright with a small squeak. “You’re getting sappy, and that’s against the rules.”

“What rules?”

“The rules of cheering you up. Now c’mon. There’s more to see.”

Vanessa’s eyes narrow, like she’s going to argue — or worse, like she’s trying to understand Charity’s motivations. They stand, simply looking at one another, for a moment, and then the beat passes, and Vanessa rolls her eyes, letting Charity lead her away.

They pass back over the cobblestones easier this time. The path is rough against Charity’s feet, so she guides Vanessa to the grassy sides, where it’s soft and ticklish. Vanessa’s nose wrinkles as she does — probably from the mud, but it’s probably nothing she’s not used to as a vet, and she doesn’t complain. Charity feels callouses beginning to form on the bottom of her feet.

The next place they reach is the pool. It’s long, wide, and the lights have switched on for the night, making the water shimmer invitingly. Vanessa raises her eyebrows at Charity as she leads them over, and they grow higher when Charity starts to hike the skirt of her dress up, but it’s only that she can sit, dipping her legs into the water. Vanessa mimics her, sitting by her side.

“This place is beautiful.”

“Tell me about it,” Charity says with only a _hint_ of jealousy, “Sarah’s bagged a good one.”

Vanessa elbows her. “You know it’s not about the money.”

“No, that’s just a perk. But who am I to talk?” She says with false sincerity, grinning before she lets her next words out. “Proposed to you when you were broke, after all.”

Vanessa gasps indignantly. “Oi! I was not!”

“Oh, no, you’re right. You were a very wealthy receptionist.”

“Charity!”

But they’re laughing, both of them, ringing through the grounds, even if it should hurt. Charity feels _full._ There’s no other name for it.

Giggling, Vanessa splashes at her gently. Charity kicks, letting out a bigger splash. It hits the skirt of Vanessa’s dress and she gasps, using her hand to throw a wave over Charity. Charity tries to twist out of the way but misjudges it, and before she can blink she’s underwater, scrabbling to find the surface.

When she finds herself above the water again, gasping for air, Vanessa stares at her, mouth open in horror. Charity feels her face warming, sure her mascara’s running down her cheeks.

“Charity, I’m so — “

Before Vanessa can finish speaking, Charity grabs the skirt of her dress and yanks, sending her splashing into the water. Charity laughs so hard when Vanessa splutters back to the surface that she barely manages to keep her head out of the water.

“Charity!”

Vanessa shoves at her, sending Charity drifting back. Her once-curled hair now sticks, straight as a pin, to her cheeks, makeup smudged around her eyes so that she looks like a panda. Charity thinks she’s never looked more adorable.

“How am I gonna explain this?” Vanessa complains, gesturing to her soaking wet form.

Charity cackles. “Got drunk and fell in the pool?”

Vanessa splashes her again, smiling wryly. “You’re enjoying this too much.”

“It’s all part of the rules of cheering you up.”

“Almost drowning me is your way of cheering me up?”

“Now I see where Johnny gets his dramatics,” Charity comments, watching Vanessa huff. She swims closer to her. “Lighten up. It’s a wedding. A _Dingle_ wedding. Guarantee they’ll all be three sheets to the wind and won’t even notice.”

Vanessa nods her head. “Well, you’re probably right about that.”

“Probably? I think you’ll find I’m _definitely_ right.” She stops treading water, letting her body float until she’s on her back, looking up at the sky as it begins to turn from orange to dark purple. “There’s a nice view.”

Charity hears the ripple of water, and then feels her hip bump against Vanessa’s. She turns her head slightly and spots her floating on her back, too. Charity smothers a smile and looks back towards the sky.

“Maya will probably notice, though,” she finds herself commenting, curious what Vanessa has to say about her fiancee. She considers telling Vanessa about their little chat in the toilets.

“Mm, probably not. She said goodbye just before I went to speak to Noah.”

“Oh. Trouble in paradise?”

Vanessa goes quiet. She’s probably overstepped a mark. There’s too much history for Vanessa to be telling her about any relationship problems — existent or non-existent —so Charity kicks her feet slightly, letting herself float away, building space between them. _Be kind,_ she reminds herself. _Just be kind to her._

The wedding rings she wears on the chain around her neck float in the water too. She can feel them bumping around with each ripple. Charity sighs, and decides, when she gets home, she’ll take the damn things off for once and for all. She’s comfortable, now, spending time like this with Vanessa, letting the past stay in the past. And she’s happy with her son in her life.

“I’m not engaged to Maya.”

The voice is quiet and soft. She can’t tell if it’s because Vanessa’s speaking quietly or because they’ve drifted apart. She fights the urge to swim closer to her and demand answers. Her palms sweat, even underwater, as she waits to Vanessa to explain.

“I used to be. I proposed to her, actually. She was the first person to make me laugh after you, and I was so grateful for that. You have no idea how dark it got for me, after giving the boys up.” Vanessa stops. Distantly, Charity hears a bird begin to sing. “But whenever I thought about marrying her I… I froze up. I couldn’t stand the thought of being hurt again.”

Charity thinks about the eagerness Johnny has shown tonight, trying to prove himself as part of the Dingle family. The way Noah slopes through the room, watching them both, distrusting. Moses, gentle and forgiving, because he wouldn’t be able to navigate life without being that way. She’s marked and hurt them all with her actions, and every night she hates herself for it, for what she’s put her kids through.

Now, the shred of self-hatred that’s made a home within her grows, feeding on the thought that she’s permanently damaged Vanessa. Vanessa had never done anything but lift her up, and she’d only pushed her down.

“Maya understood. We’ve been friends for years now and she’s… she’s been there with me through a lot. I wear the ring because it stops people trying it on, and that’s easier for me. And it was easier to let you believe it, too.” There’s another ripple of water, and she can _feel_ Vanessa drifting beside her. “But, you know, in the spirit of being honest…”

Charity inhales sharply. The sun’s almost set now. The stars are beginning to step out from their cover. She’d spent a long time, after Vanessa had left, wishing on them. Wishing Vanessa would come back; wishing she wouldn’t. She loved her, but knew she didn’t deserve that love anymore. She hadn’t known what she’d wanted, really.

Charity threads their fingers together. She hears Vanessa hum softly.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

The stars grow brighter.

“I think I owe you a lifetime of apologies.”

“But I don’t need you to apologise anymore,” Vanessa continues quietly. “I forgive you.”

Charity’s breath catches. “Yeah?”

Vanessa squeezes her hand.

“Yes, Charity.”

Vanessa releases her hand. Charity lets go of the moment, shifting so she’s upright in the water. She watches Vanessa swim over to the ladder and follows her. Her dress spills water all over the marble around the pool, dripping from her hair too, Vanessa her mirror image as her dress does the same.

Vanessa leans down and begins squeezing the water from her dress. Charity considers copying her, but spots something out of the corner of her eye.

“I have an idea.”

“You’ve been full of those.”

“One that won’t get you wet,” Charity responds, fighting against the urge to make a dirty joke. “Promise.”

“I don’t know, Charity, it’s getting dark. The boys’ll probably be looking for us.”

“You know well enough that they’ll be sneaking drink from Ryan and Noah.” Vanessa glares at her. “What? I’m not gonna pretend they’re saints. They’re at a Dingle wedding.”

Vanessa doesn’t argue. She follows Charity, the slap wet of her feet the only sound as the wildlife in the gardens begin to settle down to sleep. Charity can still feel rivulets of water running down her back and soaking into her dress as they walk.

They reach the hedge maze, and Vanessa tries to turn back. Charity catches her hand and pulls her closer.

“Charity, I’m all cheered up, I promise.”

“No you’re not,” Charity counters, because she can see it in Vanessa’s eyes, a heaviness that hasn’t yet dissipated, “I’ll race ya to the middle.”

Vanessa eyes her doubtfully. “What, have you already done this or something?”

“Haven’t stepped foot inside. Promise.”

Vanessa sighs. “Fine.”

In spite of her protests, she hears Vanessa giggle as they both jog into the maze. They follow the same path until they reach a crossroads. One way left, one way right. They glance at each other.

“See you at the finish line,” Charity replies, taking the left. She hears Vanessa mutter something, but can’t make out the words.

Charity hits a dead end after taking a right. She doubles back on herself and follows the path again, reaching another left or right decision. She decides to stick with left and after another five minutes of walking finds herself at another dead end. Charity groans, glaring up at the night sky. Maybe this wouldn’t be as simple as she thought it’d be.

Charity turns back, again, and follows another direction again. Dirt clings to her wet feet and the strapless neckline on her dress begins to weigh heavily against her. It’s all a bit too much hard work just to hear Vanessa laugh.

That’s all she wants, really. To make Vanessa laugh. Give her some good memories to replace the bad.

Maybe they’ll never be what they once were, but she supposes she could make do with being a Maya-figure in Vanessa’s life. She can see them sharing a drink at their kids’ birthdays and packing Johnny’s things for university. Sharing roles as parents.

Maybe that’s what she’d found, in Vanessa. Charity had resigned herself to a life as a single parent. She’d never thought she’d _enjoy_ motherhood, not with the things she’d been through with Debbie and Ryan. But Vanessa had stepped into her life and they’d formed a parental unit. She’d made trips to the park fun. She’d made her look forward to the end of the shift for a family dinner. She’d _domesticated_ her, like a stray cat she’d found wandering the streets.

Charity doesn’t think she’ll ever be anything but grateful for it.

“Is that you?”

Charity practically leaps a foot in the air. She glances, around but can’t see anyone.

“Vanessa?”

“I heard you coming from a mile off. You’re stomping.” Vanessa’s voice carries over the hedges. “I think I’ve almost found it. I’ll see you there.”

“Wait!”

Vanessa’s footfalls stop. Charity stares up at the stars, her heart beating loudly in her ears.

Maybe Vanessa doesn’t need her to apologise anymore, but there’s things she needs to get off her chest.

“I think I’ll always love you, you know,” Charity confesses to the sky. “One way or another.”

A gentle breeze answers her. Charity reaches out and presses a palm against the hedge wall. She imagines Vanessa on the other side. Beautiful and brilliant, always out of reach.

“I know,” Vanessa replies quietly. “See you in the middle?”

“See you in the middle.”

She hears Vanessa walk away slowly. Charity's heart, which has formed a fist in her chest, slowly begins to unravel.

She brushes away errant dirt on her skirt as she begins to wander again. She finds another three dead ends before she finds herself weaving through turns that seemingly have no end.

Eventually, the hedge walls widen, and her pace quickens as she realises she’s nearing the end. Just as she reaches the end, she spots Vanessa emerging from another hedge wall, right in the middle with her.

“Wow,” Vanessa whispers at the sight in front of them.

It’s simple, but it’s beautiful. A small fountain where a couple birds are washing, one taking a drink. They fly off when they see Charity and Vanessa, tweeting into the night air. Beside it, there’s a small crabapple tree just beginning to grow, bursting with pink.

Charity crouches down to read the inscription in front of it:  _To Nora, who made a tough journey worthwhile._

She snorts. “Sap.”

“No,” Vanessa counters, “I think I understand it.”

Charity stands. Vanessa’s hair has begun to dry, frizzing out a little around her ears. Her dress still drips with water as she walks over. As she walks towards her under the moonlight, Charity doesn’t think she’s ever seen a more beautiful sight.

Vanessa’s eyes drop to Charity’s chest. Charity’s mouth opens to make a joke, but then Vanessa’s hand reaches up, and Charity looks down just in time to see her fingers clasp the rings on the chain. She closes her eyes, groaning. She’d forgotten to tuck them back in when they’d climbed out of the water.

“How long have you been wearing this?”

“How long do you think?”

She opens her eyes. Tears blur her vision.

“I thought I’d lost them,” Vanessa confesses shakily.

“I always kept them with me.”

Vanessa clutches the rings tighter. She looks up and meets Charity’s eyes as tears begin to spill from her eyes.

“I wanted you to ask me to stay, back then. I wanted you to fight for me.”

Charity reaches out and tucks a damp strand of hair behind Vanessa’s ear.

“I’d fight for you everyday. If it made you happy.”

“ _You_ made me happy. You and the boys. And you made me give it up.”

“I’m — ”

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Vanessa interrupts fiercely. “I don’t want you to be sorry.”

“What do you want?”

Charity’s throat feels thick with tears, even as they burn their way down her cheeks. Vanessa tugs her closer by the rings.

“I want you to love me.”

“I never stopped.”

“Even when I left?”

“I did all of it because I love you. I’ve never known anyone like you. You were it for me. You, the boys… that’s all I needed. I just realised it too late.”

Vanessa nods, but she’s still staring at Charity expectantly.

“What?” Charity asks.

Vanessa sniffs. One of her fingers curls through her engagement ring as a tear drops down to her dress.

“I was so angry with you. For _so_ long. And I hated you for ruining us. I almost forgot how to love you.” Vanessa pauses. She worries her bottom lip. “But I _do_ still love you. And maybe you do owe me a lifetime of apologies.”

Charity nods. “Okay. I can do that.”

Vanessa smiles.

“Why not start now?”

“I’m — ”

The kiss Vanessa pulls her into is fierce. Charity stumbles as Vanessa tugs her close, inhaling sharply through her nose. Her hands settle on Vanessa’s waist as Vanessa’s cup her jaw. She tastes happiness for the first time in six years, sipping from her desperately, like she’s been starved of water.

Vanessa pants when she pulls away, resting her forehead against Charity’s.

“I’m sorry we missed our chance,” Charity murmurs, hands shaking.

“No, we got there. The long way round.”

“Right,” Charity whispers, smiling into the next kiss, “the long way round.”

 

* * *

 

Johnny Woodfield is six years old. He knows how to flip a pancake with his Mum’s help and how to colour in the lines and last night he read _Harry Potter_ all by himself.

But as Ma drives him and Moses to school, he finds he has a question that he doesn’t know an answer to.

“Ma?”

She comes to a stop at red lights. “Yes, your highness?”

Beside him, Moses giggles. Johnny sits forward and catches her eye.

“How do you know you’re in love?”

The lights turn green, but Ma keeps watching him. She twirls the wedding band on her finger.

“Because being without them hurts. And if you love them enough, you’ll always find your way back to them.”

“So you’ll always be with Mum?”

The light turns red again.

“Yeah, kid,” she replies steadily. “I’ll always be with her.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, each and every one of you, for your kind words on this fic. I'd never intended for this to be more than a oneshot, so I'm so grateful that The Little Fic That Could found a way into your hearts. 
> 
> As voted for on twitter, there will be a companion piece to this fic, a oneshot about Vanessa's side of things. 
> 
> I hope this ending made the journey worth it. 
> 
> <3


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